Those That Dare
by BammaJamma23
Summary: What happens when the frigate UNSC Washington is told to investigate certain leads that tell of a colony that went dark even before colonization attempts were started? A Halo/Dragon Prince crossover.
1. The Awakening

**Outer UNSC Space…**

**Date: December 4****th****, 2552…**

**Coordinates: Unknown…**

"Take a scan sheriff, where the hell are we?"

A miniature red holographic image of a Human in old western clothing appears in front of a pedestal in front of the captain, dressed in what looks to be a cowboy outfit with a wide-brimmed sunhat. The hologram tips his hat at the captain and proceeds.

"Ships sensors are still warming up but from calculating the jump we made and the star charts, it appears we are just on the line between UNSC space and Unexplored territory."

"When you get an accurate reading tell me until then wake the rest of the crew, we're going to need all hands on deck in case the worst has happened."

"Sir, it is highly unlikely that the covenant has tracked one measly frigate to the border of UNSC space"

"You and I both know we can't risk that chance, so until we know there are absolutely no covvies, I want everyone on high alert."

"Yes captain, waking them now" …

**System Diagnostics…**

**Neural Lace… Green**

**Suit Power… 100%**

**Suit Hull Integrity… 100%**

**Activating Defrost…**

**T-minus 3 2 1…**

"Good morning Spartan"

Jack opened his eyes slowly, taking in his surroundings. He then noticed the little A.I. standing in front of his pod. Wondering why he had been awakened he stumbled about in his pod before hitting the release switch, asking the sheriff "What's going on?"

"Nothing yet 049, but the Captain asked for you on the bridge, he wishes to speak with you and a few other important personnel, he says it's urgent." Sheriff said, nodding towards the exit to the cryo room.

Jack exited the pod, shaking his feet, rubbing his arm, and doing some quick stretches before going through the door and heading down a hallway. Along his trek, he passed by a few personal crew cabins, mostly unoccupied, and those that weren't were being tended to by its occupants.

He passed by the cafeteria, where a few crew members were milling about eating their meals before getting ready for their job. There were also a few marines walking out when they noticed the lumbering spartan walk by.

"Hey, look the Spartans awake! And here I was thinking he'd get to sleep in!" one of the marines shouted.

"I wish, I need my beauty sleep too, how do you think I manage to look this good?" Jack responded, turning around to look at the marines while still walking towards the CIC.

The marines started laughing, while one of them responded: "Man, if all Spartans were like you, we wouldn't need to fight this war, all those split chins would be too charmed to do shit!"

One of the marines lost it and fell over from the laughter, while Jack chuckled and did a mock salute before turning around and entering the CIC. Upon entering he saw a few people arguing, the first one he recognized was Captain Andrew, A decorated Ship commander with more than a few space battles under his belt, both before, and after, first contact.

The next two he noticed were the captain's lieutenant and someone he had never seen on this ship before, but judging by his badge and suit, he was most likely ONI. The Lieutenant and the ONI Operative were yelling at each other over something Jack only wished to understand. When they all noticed jack enter the room the argument immediately stopped, and the spook suddenly found the floor beneath him more interesting than anything else.

"What's going on?" Jack asked.

"Pierson believed that when we told him we had a spartan on board that it was and I quote 'mistaken for an ODST trooper' and when I told him it was a genuine spartan he started arguing with me that a spartan being here was impossible because his notes told him there were absolutely no Spartans on any ships that weren't either on or heading to Earth." The lieutenant replied.

"I don't understand why a spartan is currently on board. why would they have a spartan here, a II no less, on a measly frigate?" The now Dubbed 'Pierson' asked.

"I was going to get to that Pierson before you rudely cut me off to yell at my Lieutenant." The captain responded in his gruff and stern voice.

"It's because I was assigned to this frigate in the middle of the evacuation of Alpha Corvi II. During a Covenant invasion. Command dictated that leaving a spartan on a planet to be glassed was a gross waste of resources, so they had me hitch a ride on this Frigate, I could ask the same of you" Jack said, pointing at Pierson.

The Captain nodded at the spartan, showing his thanks to Jack. "The spook was picked up while you were still frozen, while you were gone we had to make a stop at a munitions station in a nearby system and the ONI officer hitched a ride from there, saying he had leads on a colony that went dark on us around 300 years ago."

"That's why I wanted you all here, we are currently heading towards the planet at sub-light speeds. It's a garden world but it's got a few components missing of what we usually find from colony worlds, specifically it's missing all of its satellites and our attempts to contact it has left us unanswered." The Captain stated.

"Is it a rogue colony?" Jack asked.

"Currently we have no idea why this supposed "Colony" is dark, all we can say is that it's entirely possible that the humans sent here never made it, or simply could not sustain themselves after the landing. And then that raises the question of why and how because you don't just lose a colony like this." Pierson responded, before nodding to Sheriff, who was currently "sitting" on a rocking chair with a cigar in his holographic mouth.

"A logical data analysis says that this colony world is as of yet fully colonized, meaning that if we are to land here it is to be considered a "foreign" planet, meaning it is entirely possible we could be at a first contact scenario, even if it is with a primitive species."

Jack nodded at Sheriff, then put his thumb and Index finger up to his chin in a thinking pose.

"But that's not the only problem, when we got here our sensors were offline, which is normal for a slip jump, but immediately when the sensors went online, we sent out a ping which located a covenant Battlecruiser in orbit around the gas giant in the system. We believe it is refueling here, and we also believe that it knows we are here as well. Right now, the ship is in a critical situation, if we could hit it before it moves on us we could cripple it and destroy before it has the chance to lay siege on another human world." The captain said

"But if we destroy it, we could lose potentially valuable intel on the covenant! It's currently considered to be in a critical spot, if we could get a boarding party there, we could siphon as much intel as we need and attempt to kill any important members of the ship effectively crew killing the ship! Hell, we could even take the ship to use against the covenant! Think of the possibilities of taking over a covenant ship!" Pierson argued.

"You know exactly what happens if we try to board covvie ships, if we get too far they activate all sorts of countermeasures and eventually if they need to they will scuttle the ship". The Captain argued back.

"But we have a Spartan sir! Now that I know what assets we have it's entirely possible to sneak the spartan in and get as much info as possible before getting back out and then we lay siege to the ship!" Pierson countered

"So what you're saying is that we put our Spartan, who is currently one of our most important assets, and shove him on a ship full of covvies, and we just hope that he can kill enough of those bastards that he can hijack the ship?" The captain said

"When you put it like that it sounds insane" Pierson responded.

"Maybe that's because it is you lunatic!" The lieutenant chimed in.

"Listen, I'm not saying he hijacks the ship, that's impossible even for a spartan, but the spook does have a point, we could sneak him on by shooting him out of a pod directly towards the stationary ship." Sheriff responded

"You too?!" The Lieutenant shouted

"I can go with him to shut off the ship's sensors and direct him towards a ship terminal, where we can get as much info as we can before evacuating so you can blast the ship to kingdom come."

The whole room was silent, the captain and the lieutenant were shocked into silence while the spook had a slight smirk on his face. Jack was the first to break the silence.

"It's a sound strategy, and if the A.I. believes it's possible I'm inclined to believe him"

The captain then nodded his head at the spartan. "If 049 is willing to go then I'll let him, but I want a guarantee that whatever happens, if it gets too risky you get your ass out of there, understood?"

"Yes sir, at the first sign of trouble it's book ass-o-clock," Jack responded

"Good, suit up at the armory, and get to the drop pods in 15," The captain said.

"Aye, sir," Jack responds.


	2. The Battlecruiser

'_so far so good' _Jack thought.

He was currently inside of an SOEIV, or a drop pod for the common soldier. Not too long ago he was getting armed with his personal weapons of choice, an M45 tactical shotgun and a BR55 Battle Rifle. After getting properly armed he was again debriefed on what to do, before grabbing sheriff in an A.I. housing unit and hopping into a drop pod and being shot out into the void of space where he would stealthily board the ship and from then on it would be smooth sailing.

"I know you've already heard it twice but I'm going to go over the plan once more before we hit the ship." Sheriff said.

"I don't think I need another run-down Sheriff" Jack responded.

"It's not like you have anything better to do anyway, Jack"

"Someone's been doing their research," Jack said

"I had some prep time waiting for you, decided to check out your record before we do this, gotta say I'm impressed by your record. 372 confirmed insurrectionist kills alone. Along with over a couple thousand confirmed covenant kills, that's mighty impressive even for a spartan."

"Been on a lot of missions, I'm sure it's not unusual at this point for such a high kill count on Spartans," Jack said.

"Back to the topic at hand…" Sheriff said.

Jack Sighed.

"The pod was launched at a position that it would be intercepted at one of the Battlecruisers main hangars, I'll disable the sensors when we get in there so you can dispose of any covenant currently in the hangar." Sheriff said

"After that, I will guide you to a terminal where we can download any data we find onto my containment chip, after that, you get back in the pod and I'll fire up the reverse thrusters into a course where a pelican can swoop by and pick us up before the covenant ship gets canned."

Jack sighed once again; this was going to be a long day.

"Get ready spartan, we're hitting the hangar in T-minus 10 seconds."

Jack pulled his battle rifle off the holster next to him, loaded a magazine into its spot, and clicked the safety off. This was going to be a hot drop, that much he knew, so he made sure to load his weapons to fire upon entry.

The pod shuttered slightly, that was the cue. He kicked the door open, refusing to believe in the philosophy of door locks. As soon as he exited the first thing he noticed were three grunts surrounding the pod, all confused at what they just saw. One of the grunts was immediately startled and started running away while the other two started blathering something in its foul language before pulling out their plasma pistols.

They were silenced before they could even so much as raise their weapons to bear. 3 quick bursts to each respective head silenced the Grunts forever. He quickly scanned the Hangar around him, completely empty, save a few Spirit drop ships and banshees. This was odd, usually, the covvies were constantly swarming inside of their ships. Jack simply shrugged, maybe they were all busy elsewhere?

He moved over to one of the covenant terminals to plug in Sheriff. Upon plugging sheriff into the covenant battle net, Sheriff immediately popped into his holograph form on top of the pedestal.

"So that's why there are hardly any covvies in this hangar." Sheriff said aloud.

"What is it?" Jack said.

"The majority of them are currently either near the "bridge" or eating, I guess they are busy waiting for their fuel to charge before they inevitably go attack our ship."

"What about patrols?"

"None near us, I think they don't know we're on board, which is perfect if you ask me."

"Where is the nearest terminal?" Jack asked.

"Marking it on your Hud, I'm going to attempt to take control of the cameras to mark potential hostiles on your path to the terminal." Sheriff said.

Jack exited the room and immediately checked both left and right, weapon raised, before moving towards the waypoint. He encountered absolutely no resistance on his way, only having to quickly hide around a corner after a stray elite marched down the halls slowly.

He reached the terminal without a hitch and plugged Sheriff in. He scanned the large hallway he was in, making sure that no covvie would happen upon them, while Jack was busy securing the area Sheriff immediately got to work downloading all the information not already currently known to humans about the covenant, which so far was very little.

"Done," Sheriff said. "Pull me."

Jack nodded, unplugging his chip from the console. He immediately ran back towards the drop pod, where he again met zero resistance. Upon reentering the Hangar, he slowed down and walked up to his drop pod.

"Mission went extraordinarily well, this is unusual, even for me. Nice change of pace if you ask me." Jack said.

Right as he finished that sentence the ship shook hard and pushed him to the ground.

"The ship's thrusters have just been activated! They finished earlier than I thought they would!"

Jack went to go into his drop pod but right before he could Sheriff shouted "No! Do not enter that drop pod! we won't have enough fuel to redirect our course back to the ship, and they are entering slipspace regardless, you will die if you do!"

"So your plan is that we just sit here and wait until they exit slipspace? That could take weeks." Jack said

"Covenant slipspace has always been faster than ours, depending on where they are going it could only take a few hours to a day or two."

Looking outside of the Hangar, Jack noticed the change from realspace to slipspace, it was pitch black outside the hangar, something he had seen before, but it still shook him regardless.

Then it went from slipspace to realspace again.

"Or it could take a few minutes." Jack slyly remarked.

"Something's wrong, The ship is encountering gravity, even though they are faster they shouldn't be that fast. Wait."

"Oh no" Both Jack and Sheriff said aloud.

Outside of the Hangar Jack saw the planet that was the topic of discussion, it was a garden world, one of the few planets that was considered for original colonization attempts, before the realization that old human slipspace engines would not be fast enough to get there in a reasonable amount of time.

Even though a reasonable amount of time was anywhere before 4 years. To be fair.

It's was just all the logistics required for such a trip. This is why a colony ship was sent out, and possibly why the colony failed early on, being so cut off from Earth meant many natural problems could potentially kill off the entire crew, regardless of how advanced the ship was at its time.

While pondering all of this Jack heard the door to the Hangar open, and when he turned around, he saw a couple of elites, armored in gold and red, common Zealot colors, along with quite a few Grunts in tow.

One of the elites beckoned a war cry before they all pulled out their weapons. Even a spartan of such nature would be unable to take on a couple of zealots and a full platoon of Grunts.

But he would fight anyways, to the death if he had to. That was the way all Spartans went, in a blaze of glory, right?

Immediately Jack raised his battle rifle and started firing, emptying his clip in record times as he burst down as many of the grunts as he could in one magazine. Then one of the elites pulled out a hilt and ignited his energy sword. Before charging at the spartan.

"DEMON!" The elite shouted, before slashing at the spartan, the blade missed, but Jack couldn't pull his weapon to bear, because the Elite quickly swiped his sword down to cut the Spartan down the middle.

Jack deftly dodged the attack, and pulled his shotgun off of his back, and shot the elite center mass. Each pellet struck true, overloading the elites shields and stunning the elite for just enough time to pour out more lead into the elite's stomach.

The elite quickly fell, the blast knocking it off its feet. As it lies in a puddle of its own blood he turned to the other elites as they pulled out their weapons.

The plasma was too much, Jacks' shields quickly overloaded, and he knew his time was short, one of the elites managed to get a good blow on the center of his chest. The armor would hold, but not for long, he was already feeling the burn from the plasma.

At that moment Jack did something he never thought he'd do, he tackled one of the closest Elites, that just so happened to be trying to flank him, and was therefore standing just perfectly next to the barrier holding the atmosphere inside the Hangar.

Both Jack and the Zealot were thrown outside of the Hangers barrier, the elite quickly choking and dying from the potent lack of oxygen. But even with Jack's EVA he knew that surviving the fall to the surface would be very difficult if not downright impossible. But I mean hey, it wasn't the first time a spartan had survived a fall from orbit, right?


	3. The Planetfall

**Daravux (Previously Named Terra 4 of the Terran System)**

**Date: Year 3001, Standard Human Calendar**

**Outside The Kingdom of Katolis**

A guard sent by the Human kingdom of Katolis was currently on the lookout for wild beasts and potential foreign intruders, and seeing as up until now his job was relatively quiet, he had no reason to be concerned.

That was, until that elf attacked him, dressed in what he could only assume to be assassin gear, he wondered both why and how he was not killed at that moment, but he wasted no time alerting the King that there were elves in the kingdom's borders.

A long and heated discussion between the King and his advisors followed as to how he would defend himself, if the guard was to be trusted then what he was attacked by was most likely Moonshadow Elves, Pitted assassins who live their lives in secrecy.

Which meant that the coming full moon would make it nearly impossible for him to defend himself from these elves, their blades would be incredibly durable, and strong enough to pierce any armor known to man.

Against his most trusted advisor, and his best friend's wishes. He would accept that his death was coming, and so he would hold to the last, and he knew he would meet his fate in his bedroom, but he wished for his children to live.

So, he ordered them to go to a remote lodge out east where they would be safe from the attack. Only, his children were currently trying to stop all of this fighting by showing the elves that the egg of the dragon king, once thought destroyed, was in fact still alive.

But it did not convince a majority of the elves, they were bounded and by their bounds, they would see the King and Prince killed. Except for one elf, the Kindhearted Rayla, who believed that this egg would be the end of all the infighting between humans and elves.

As the children and the elf attempted to get as far away from the Kingdom, Callum, the oldest of the two Human brothers, saw a shooting star.

"Hey Ez look! a shooting star! Make a wish!"

"I wish we get this egg delivered to its mom soon," Ezran replied

"Hmm, Well I wish that we make it to where we're going unhurt." Callum Said

"Humans are so weird," Rayla said as she rolled her eyes.

They continued walking down the little path to that little lodge where secrets would hopefully be answered.

**Terra 4**

**Date: December 5****th****, 2552**

**Location… Unknown**

"Jack"

"Jackie boy"

"Jack wake up you're starting to scare me."

"JACK!"

Jack awoke with a jolt, and suddenly wished he didn't. It hurt, everything hurt, but he was alive… somehow.

"Sheriff, next time you want to wake me, make sure to apply biofoam everywhere BEFORE you wake me," Jack said angrily

"Where's the fun in that, 049?" Sheriff replied

"Plenty of fun in that, trust me," Jack said with a groan.

He moved his head upwards, investigating the area he was around, and noticed the dead zealot was still on top of him.

With the pain slightly subsided he moved the elite off of him and rose to his feet in a kneeling position. His body still ached, but by now the painkillers would kick in, so the pain he felt was a lot less than it was a minute ago.

He looked around and noticed that he was in the middle of a forest. The leaves were thick overhead and he made a small crater where he landed.

"You're going to have to get up some time soon, you know that right?" Sheriff said

"Give me a sec, I'm taking in the surroundings," Jack replied with a Grunt as he heaved himself up to his feet in a standing position.

Jack switched on his radio and tuned it to the official UNSC Naval channel.

"This is Warrant Officer Spartan Bravo Delta Charlie 049. Washington Actual do you read me?"

The radio crackled before he got an immediate response "This is….Engaging…"

"Hold on, I'm tuning it, we'll need to get somewhere higher if we want to get a clearer signal." Sheriff said.

"Copy that, the Nearest hill I saw was east, I think I'll head that way."

"Good plan, until then I'll keep trying to raise the Washington," Sheriff Responded.

It wasn't much of a trek, because he only needed to travel roughly a kilometer before he reached his destination, although when he got there he was surprised, it was what looked like a log cabin in the middle of an open clearing, and it was in decent shape too, which meant someone, or something, was here.

He quickly got down to one knee, pulling out the only weapon he currently had besides his knife, his shotgun, and took a closer look.

It looked as though no one lived in it, or was currently living in it. But he still chose to move cautiously, moving out of the clearing he quickly moved his way to the door. When he got to it he put his helmet up to the side to listen, when he heard nothing he opened the door slightly before pushing through with his shotgun raised just in case.

The first thing he noticed when he entered was how sturdily it was built, columns everywhere and a stairwell leading straight up. As he moved up the steps, with his shotgun raised he noticed something.

Armor, specifically knight armor, from the medieval ages, with some noticeable features, but what really tipped him off when he investigated was that the gloves required 5 hands and were each roughly the size of an average human.

"This is the UNSC Washington, Captain Andrew speaking. 049 is that you?"

"Yes sir, I hear you loud and clear captain." Jack Replied.

"I think luck is on our side today Spartan, the Battlecruiser didn't know we were here so we got a good shot off while its shields were down, currently we believe we hit the ship Hard enough that it's not going anywhere any time soon. Unfortunately, it got a shot off on my ship, it grazed the engines but that was more than enough to shut down the thrusters altogether, so as of right now both ships are sitting in orbit." The captain said.

"Are the other systems still functional?" Jack asked.

"A majority of our systems are fine, but when our engines got hit it hard restarted our slip engine, we can get it repaired but it will take a couple of days, I'm going to send a pelican detachment to come to pick you up." The captain said

"Sir I don't want to alarm you but I am currently inside of a log cabin," Jack said

"Repeat your last, did you say a log cabin?" The captain asked, flabbergasted.

"Yes sir, I am currently taking shelter inside of a cabin made of wood in the middle of a clearing," Jack responded

He looked around, and went all the way upstairs, before reaching what looked to be some type of sleeping room, that had many chairs and what looked to be games. Right as he entered the room he heard the main door to the cabin open very gently, just loud enough that he could hear it but so quiet that no normal human could hear it, it was subtle but he was guessing that's what the intruder wanted.

He quickly attempted to hide in the room he was in, leaving the door open he moved over to one of the tables and knelt down to hide his massive form.

Then he heard a loud CRASH, and then heard a man say "I don't believe in locks".

He tuned out the rest of the conversation because His focus was not on them anymore, because he was more focused on the humanoid that had passed by the door, it appeared to move by fast, almost faster than his eyes, almost.

From what he could tell, the humanoid was short, shorter than your average human, but the interesting parts were the horns, the horns, and the ears, from what he saw he believed it to be a mutated version of a human. Or a human with some very odd decorations.

"Tell me I didn't just see what I thought I just saw," Jack said

"I got a still image of that, yeah, I'm guessing we both saw the same thing then." Sheriff said.

"Spartan 049 Respond!" He heard the captain state over his radio.

That shook Jack out of his stupor. "This is 049, go ahead."

"Thought I'd lost you; you went silent on me for a minute." Captain Andrew said.

"Sir, you're not going to believe this," Jack said into the radio.

"Not going to believe what?" The captain asked.

"Send him the photo Sheriff," Jack stated.

The radio was silent for a moment, then another. Finally, the radio crackled back to life.

"What the hell was that? It looked like an elf from an old fantasy game I used to play." The captain stated.

"Best guess is that it's a mutated human, or a completely different species altogether, sir" Sheriff Responded.

"The pelican is incoming to your position ASAP, you need to find a way out of that house, loud or quiet I do not care, just get out of there in one piece." The captain said.

Right as the radio died down the weird alien returned around the corner, this time entering the room, from his position he could see some very definable features. Mostly the ones he saw before, like the horns and the ear, but then he noticed how purple the alien's skin was, and that instead of having 5 fingers it had 4, 3 main and an opposable thumb.

He cocked his shotgun, racking in a shell and startling the alien, who made a high-pitched squeal. "You are going to turn around, and you are going to leave this room, or I am going to shoot you, and you will die," Jack said through his suit's speakers.

The alien pulled out 2 dagger-like weapons from its back, which were more like oversized switchblades, before quietly asking "Who's there?"

Jack rose to his full height and aimed his shotgun at the alien. "This is your last warning, leave now or prepare to taste buckshot," Jack said.

Jack then realized that the weapon the alien was carrying likely meant it had little to no experience with firearms, so he thus fired one of his shells directly to the left of the alien, barely missing, before racking in another shell.

She appeared to be so downright afraid that she didn't even move, which left her open for a tackle from behind by a… a human?

A human wearing some very heavy armor and a hefty shield on her back that had a divot in the middle likely meant to twist swords out of hands, like the elite's blade designs.

Jack immediately lowered his weapon, and when the armored lady looked up from her fresh catch she saw the lumbering form of Jack and immediately got back up, getting into a defensive position.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Jack said. "I think this alien was sneaking around when I found her."

The lady then started moving her hands in… patterns? Sign language, he supposed.

"She says that while she is thankful for the assistance, she doesn't know who you are and what you are doing in the King's lodge." Sheriff translated.

"Classified," Jack Responded.

She then squinted her eyes slightly, before picking her arms up into a fighting pose, he deftly raised his shotgun and warned: "Listen I don't want to hurt you, you can just walk away, I'll walk out of here, and everyone will be fine." Jack said.

She didn't move, not a muscle. Then with a move that startled even jack she struck right at his chest with a strong blow, mind you not strong enough to move the Spartan, but definitely strong enough to knock out any regular person.

He then fired his shotgun at her, a majority of the pellets bounced off her armor, but a stray pellet strung true and hit the weak spot between the joints in her armor. That was enough to stop a follow up from her, where he then shoulder charged her, knocking her over, and rushed out the door.

Inside the main lobby of the cabin sat a large group of what looked to be medieval knights, all with weapons raised. In the center of the group sat two children who looked rather mortified by what they had just seen.

He didn't wish to hurt any of the people here, sure they could be insurrectionists, but it's entirely possible that every person in this room was innocent, to an extent.

So instead of being the aggressor in the fight he ran across the 2nd floor until he was close to the exit, jumped over the railing, and landed with a heavy thud on the main lobby floor in front of the door. He then deftly ran outside where he looked up to the sky and saw a smaller dot getting closer to him, likely his ride.

One of the knights outside struck at Jack while he was focused on his current ride out of here. The sword did little but smack into his armor, but it was enough to get Jack out of his stupor, when the knight went to swing again, he grabbed the blade by the palm of his hand, took the sword out of his opponents' hand, and shoved the guy back.

The man fell over, likely not getting back up for a while. Then the pelican became visible to his naked eye, and he knew that his time was running thin.

Three other men walked out of the cabin, swords raised and were ready to cut him down, when suddenly a large downdraft blew up small debris, and the men looked up in awe as the pelican landed on the ground quickly. Jack backed up as the bay doors opened up, revealing a squad of marines with rifles to bear, and Captain Andrews himself.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking what the hell are you doing here?" Jack asked.

"These humans have been out of touch with the UEG for almost 300 years, I'm here to officially reestablish contact, and I was hoping to get to meet some of the 'aliens' as they have so been dubbed by our crew." Captain Andrews responded

"Hold your fire men, these people are on our side." The Captain addressed his men.

The knights Held firm, but they did not attack. They simply looked at each other warily. You could tell that each of them was scared out of their minds, these humans just came flying from out of nowhere in what could only be described as a flying metal box.

"What Kingdom do you hail from, and for what purpose does that beast serve?" One of the knights said aloud.

Judging by the decoration on the soldier, he appeared to be a ranking officer, so Captain Andrew responded kindly

"We haven't used a martial kingdom in over a millennium, as to who we hail from? We hail from the United Nations Space Command." The Captain answered

**AN: Sorry for not putting this up in the previous chapters, but I just needed to get these three out here before I lose them forever in the void that is my head. Reviews and Likes are always appreciated! When and if I start getting more reviews they will be posted at the bottom part of the page, along with a small teaser for the next chapter and authors notes!**

**Bravado! The UNSC has officially made contact with the current occupants of the land. And it seems as though they have completely forgotten about their human origins. But what about the covenant? **

**See ya next time fellow lads and laddetes ;) **


	4. The Complications

**Unknown Holy Garden World**

**9****th**** Age of Reclamation**

**Aboard the CCS-class Battlecruiser High Resolve**

Those cursed humans had disabled his holy cruiser. Not only that, but they had sent a demon to make an attempt at his life no doubt! At first, he was furious that a human so much as got to touch his holy cruiser, but that was past him now. Shipmaster Thoza 'Locamee had another problem to tend to that had been plaguing his ship even before the Demon.

The Brutes.

They had been causing all this ruckus and hubris over the covenant and its seemingly poor structure, and how they were more worthy of the title of protector of the noble hierarchs than the elites, which had caused revolts in all forms. Wherever the covenant was, the brutes were attempting to oust the elites as the true soldiers of the great divine beyond.

Which leads us to the shipmasters current predicament, locked in the main helm of his holy ship, the brutes were attempting to carve their way in so they could take over this cruiser, which is why he allowed the human vessel to even so much as pass a glancing blow into the reactor of the ship, meaning that as long as the ship was mission-critical, it would not be able to leave the system, and Thoza would put his life on the line to make sure the brutes couldn't so much as move his holy ship.

Thoza 'Locamee was typing furiously on a console, attempting to get any information on this "Brute rebellion" as his crewmates so aptly dubbed it.

The covenant battlenet was a mess, reports flooded in from everywhere, but there was a common trait amongst them all.

Brutes killing elites en masse, Prophets were liars, Humans can be trusted.

At first, Thoza believed these to be a test of his will with the prophets, but the more he read, the more he realized. The prophets truly were liars and were not to be trusted. He had his own doubts about the sudden need to wipe the humans from existence, but he was never one to question the holy hierarchs. Now he did not know who he could trust, he knew the brutes were out for his kins blood, so they were off the list.

The Kig-Yar could be as trusted as long as you can keep their pockets full. they would likely side with the brutes as well out of the sheer amount of fear for the lumbering apes.

The Ungoy would still be loyal to him, that much he was sure, he made sure that he spent precarious amounts of time with all of his crew members, even the lowly grunts, whom he believed were wronged and deserved to be better trained than your average Grunt.

That left the Mgalekgolo, and the Huragok. Of which he only had a select few of each, so he was not worried either way.

But the Brutes on his ship outnumbered the rest of his crew 2 – 1, with the exception of the Grunts.

For a moment he thought that he should…

No!

Such thoughts were reckless!

Why would the species his kind so valiantly fought to destroy aid him because he was in trouble?

They would likely help themselves, let us kill each other, then take our ship while we are weak!

But he knew humans were tenacious creatures, and almost as honor-bound as the elites.

He would do it! He resolved to himself

Contact the Human ship, barter for an alliance like the rest of the elites had been doing.

He sent out a message over all channels.

"Hail, and take heed Humans, I wish to speak with the captain of your vessel to resolve a current matter, my kind were wrong to purge your species, but asking for forgiveness would be too much, so I instead ask for an alliance so we can work together to purge the system of the horrid plague that is the Jiralhanae. After that, I wish for further cooperation in the matters of our ships both being in no position to get to our respective homes."

**Terra IV**

**Date: December 10****th****, 2552.**

**Winter Lodge of the King of Katolis**

The captain was sitting across from the "General" of the 2nd scouting brigade of Katolis, a kingdom close to the border of the "magical" lands of Xadia. So far everything he had heard, or rather, learned, from the General was absurd, every last one of it, and it seems that upon hearing of the history of the UNSC she was not taking it any better.

"So, wait, you're saying there's a whole race of Humans that are exploring space?" The young child, Callum, asked.

"Yes son, we are from outer space, although you are the same humans we are." The captain explained while rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah, I don't get that either, if we're both the same kind of human then how did we get to this point, like, you've got cool space weapons! Shouldn't we have them too?" The youngest Child, Ezran, Asked.

"We simply do not know at this point, there's no sign of the colony ship anywhere, and to top that off it seems like because of the use of "Magic" as you've so called it, your reliance on firearms has downgraded." The Captain said.

The General who he had been speaking to started using her sign language again and her trusty commander translated for her. "So, you've never met elves in the entirety of your journeys through the stars? Nor dragons?"

"No, we have never seen either of those. The closest we've ever gotten to a foreign intelligence is currently trying to turn our species to ash, so we have that to go off of."

While the conversation was being held at the lobby of the cabin, Jack was down in the basement, watching over the slumbering alien species.

An Elf.

A god damn Elf.

He was so confused, he'd only thought they were creatures from the books of fantasy, yet here he was, staring directly at one.

The Elf attempted to tell the Spartan about a plan of hers to take the two young princes and attempt to get the egg of the dragon prince back home so a steady peace could be settled between the two species.

Sheriff Listened in on the whole conversation, and, from calculating body postures and heat signatures, was able to deduce that the Elf was not lying

The situation was dire, and Jack knew that no matter what if he wanted to help he would be on his own, and while that was usual for him this journey would take days, even weeks to complete on foot.

The best Jack could get would be a quick Pelican supply drop before it had to leave to go collect resources for the firebase they plan on setting up.

But they were stuck here, for the time being. The Engineers onboard the UNSC Washington was working valiantly to repair the ship's slipspace engines. As soon as the slip generator was fixed they would load up a majority of the assets from this planet and leave a small contingent of soldiers behind to make sure that recolonization attempts would not lead to disaster.

They would reeducate, rearm, and attempt to restructure the planet to better suit current human condition, I.E. attempting to get the native population space worthy.

While they were still technically part of UEG space, the UEG had been put on the back burner due to the ongoing war for survival, and the UNSC would take the helms of the matters of planetary governance.

Which made the Captain the official governor of the planet.

It all hurt Jacks's brain. He knew his way around politics but he was never really a fan of it in the first place.

Which is why he was seriously thinking about joining these three on their secret mission to save the egg.

The elf awoke, her eyes slowly stretching awake, she was still bound and tried to move around in her bindings.

"So, have you uh, given some thought to my proposal?" The elf asked.

"Not really" Jack responded slyly.

The elf pouted slightly, its eyes drooped down and it started taking a disappointed look. At least what looks to be a disappointed look.

"That was a joke," Jack said

"Oh really? I didn't know the Tin Man could joke with a heart made of steel."

Jack chuckled slightly, and he let his shoulders sag. "Yes, I've given some thought to what you've asked, the only problem will be trying to convince my superiors and supplies, if I go with you we won't be getting any help from the UNSC."

"Oh, that won't be a problem, we were going to go regardless of your answer, but your help is nice." She smiled at him.

"So, I guess I should be briefed on the plan then." Jack Sighed.

"I uhhh." The elf stammered. "We don't really have a plan; we were just going to walk there ourselves."

"walk" Jack replied

"Yeees?" The elf got out.

"You know what, if all our plans were that simple, I would have joined the UNSC before I was even born," Jack said.

"That is a weird way to put it. Are you in or not?" The elf questioned.

"Hell yes I am, when do we start?" Jack responded excitedly

**AN: Sorry there wasn't much covenant action, for those of you that aren't aware of what is going on we are at the height of the great schism, where the elites and the brutes would have a civil war that would cause the collapse of the mighty covenant. Also I edited some paragraphs here to better suit the story as a whole.**

**Reviews:**

**Guest – Thanks, man!**

**UN Peacekeeper – Damn right my friend.**

**Next time: Elves, Shenanigans, and lots of water, something that not even a spartan enjoys.**

**As always. Peace.**


	5. The Plan and The Saint

**Terra IV**

**Date: December 10****th,**** 2552**

**Location: Log Cabin of the (Former) King of Katolis.**

The discussions had died down in the room, now everyone was simply sharing stories of previous experiences throughout their journeys.

"Big, mean bastards those hunters are, one of the big guys nearly wiped the floor with our resident Spartan. Those things mean business and they come armed to bear. My first time seeing a hunter was just about a month ago, and I'd be dead if it weren't for the Spartan." One of the marines stated to the crowd, who was currently awed by his story.

"To be fair you were also the only marine I've seen stand up to a hunter like that, normally even I'd try to not get in hand fights with hunters but with how close you were you might as well have tried to give it a good gut punch," Jack added, walking out of the basement room.

"049, aren't you supposed to be watching over the prisoner?" Captain Andrew asked.

"That thing hasn't woken up in a good couple of hours, I doubt she will any time soon. Sir." Jack answered

"Right, well, in that case, come join us, son, we're sharing stories and I know for a fact that you've got more than a few to share." The captain said.

While Jack started to retell his first-ever firefight with the covenant, Reyna managed to slowly but surely sneak out of the room she was in. She knew going out the main door was impossible, but there were a few windows where she could sneak out. Getting the guards' attention was the only slight problem, but she moved fast enough that only the Spartan noticed her exit.

When she got outside the first thing she noticed was the "Ship" the humans came in on, it was big and blocky. She shrugged, must just be a practical design choice or something, she wasn't a military kind of person.

It had Human lettering on its side, "Dc47H2 Designated Squad Pelican." Is that what they called that? It was a long name, that much was known, so for now, she was just going to call it a metal box, seemed more fitting anyways.

Trying to find a way out of this place with the princes and the spartan in tow.

Rayla looked around the Pelican, trying to find something when she noticed the pilot was doing some maintenance inside of the pelican. Now would be as good a chance as any.

She snuck up behind the Pilot, not making so much as a sound, before putting on of her blades up against the Pilots neck

"Here's what you're going to do, you're going to walk out of this box, and you are going to go into that lodge and get your captain, tell him to go outside slowly or I'll make sure you don't live to see the light of day. Got it?" Rayla Demanded.

The Pilot nodded quietly, scared out of his mind.

Inside the lodge, Spartan 049 was busy discussing the weirdest experience he had with the covenant to date.

"They were doing some type of dance, I couldn't tell, but they were really rocking hard to some of that music. It's almost like they enjoy our music as much as we do." Jack said. Demonstrating the moves the covenant were making at the time.

Some of the marines and knights started laughing, while the captain just sat there with a smile on his face.

Then the door opened slightly, and through the door came one of the pilots of the pelican. The pilot slowly walked up to the Captain, as to not disturb the scene, then bent down to whisper in the Captain's ear. "Sir, we have a problem with the Pelican. Oscar Delta Romeo 10"

The captain's eyes opened slightly, alien boarder? But there weren't any covvies, not on the planet, at least, none that he could find with basic planetary scans.

Wait.

"I'm sorry to interrupt but there is an issue I need to see resolved with my ship if you will excuse me for one moment."

As soon as the Captain got up, he pinged his comm. "049, I need you to walk outside with me, we've got a security breach."

"Sir?"

"It's urgent, Spartan"

"Aye, sir."

The Spartan quickly got up, which shocked a majority of the people in the room, he then stated "There are some matters the Captain and I need resolved, we'll be back momentarily."

The Spartan and the Captain walked out, Spartan in front of the Captain. When they closed the doors behind them out from the Pelican came Rayla, who looked nervous. The Captain immediately pulled out his magnum from his holster, cocking it and aiming it at the Moon Elf, before the Spartan put his hand over the barrel of the weapon, lowering it slightly.

"Hear her out, sir."

"You have exactly one chance to explain to me how you got out, managed to threaten

one of my pilots, and are currently on board my Pelican!" The captain shouted.

...

The city was burning down, fire was everywhere, and corpses were strewn about, human corpses.

Fresh meat, seared, just the way all brutes preferred their prey.

A Brute tore off an arm from a nearby corpse, blood splattered everywhere, he bit into the meat.

"These worthless humans tried to use swords against us!" One of the brutes jeered

This town's fate was sealed the moment the phantom entered the airspace of the town. The people protecting this city were slaughtered by the brutes, none of them stood a chance fighting. So the civilians hid, and the brutes found them.

Well… Most of them

One child was hiding in her house when the attack happened, the big mean gorillas from the purple floaty thingy had passed by her house multiple times, they had already taken daddy outside, and mommy quickly followed. She hoped that they didn't hurt either of them too much, but she knew deep down that they weren't coming back.

Then the door slammed open, and the child made a small whimper. Her pet dog was sitting in front of her, with its teeth bared. Suddenly one of the big gorillas entered through the door.

The dog started growling, and the Brute looked over to where the dog was.

A grin formed on his face.

The dog growled even louder and started softly barking. The brute moved ever closer to the dog, and then the dog attacked, biting deep into the brutes' arm.

The Brute shouted out, then struck his weapon down on the wild mutt. Silencing the tamed beast forever.

Ellis started crying, her pet. No her best friend was hurt, badly.

The Brute then turned to Ellis.

"A fine capture, you will satisfy my every whim vermin!"

Ellis started crying as the Brute got closer, and put her arms in front of her face to protect herself from whatever came next.

Only, nothing came.

She heard the Brute drop-down and opened her eyes.

There, standing over the dead Brute, stood another alien, this one looked different though, it was hunched over, and only a tiny bit smaller than the brute he had just slain and was holding a twin blade that was glowing white, possibly the sword he used to slay the ugly beast.

Then the alien turned around.

She saw its face, its head was pushed forward and downward, and instead of one mouth, it had four mandibles in its place.

And it used those mandibles to speak to her.

"Do not fret, young one. I have come to save as many of you as I can."

Ellis Started bawling, she couldn't stop the tears from falling at that point. Her friend wasn't getting back up.

"What about my parents?" she asked through sniffles and sobs.

The elite knelt down and put a hand on her tiny shoulder.

"I'm… sorry, young one. Your birthkeepers are not coming back to you."

That was when she lost it.

"Shhhh, you must quiet down, or more of them will come."

She nodded slightly, now gone from sobbing to quiet sniffles, for she had cried all the tears her little eyes could produce.

The elite wiped a tear from her face.

"I am going to put you on my shoulder, and I am going to ask of you to hold onto me as tightly as possible, understood?"

Ellis Nodded

The elite nodded back, picking her up onto his shoulder, before standing to his full height.

Ellis held on tight to the elites' head, and then the elite ran out of the door.

...

"Well? Are you going to answer me? Or am I going to have to shoot you for trespassing on UNSC property?" The captain shouted again, The spartan had to again push down the barrel of the weapon.

"Okay, Okay!" Rayla exclaimed, "I'll talk!"

"Explain yourself, right now!" The captain then shouted.

"Okay! Look, I need your help, you guys seem a little more friendly than the knights in the lodge. Which is why I need your help! The youngest child in there, Ezran, has an egg in his backpack that, if we can get to my home, can stop all of this fighting between elves and Humans!"

The Captain looked to the side slightly, contemplating his life's choices that led him to this moment. Slowly, he lowered the gun and put it back in its holster.

"You're in luck because while we are busy trying to get all the people together, we do need native species and humans cooperating. You are technically a first contact scenario to us. I won't be able to aid you in many ways." The captain stated

"Well, we do have a Spartan that is currently sitting around looking pretty, and…" Sheriff said, before getting cut off.

"No, I refuse. A spartan going on this trip would be a gross misallocation of important resources."

"But sir! He is more use down here than back on the ship! What if the covenant is planetside and our sensors just couldn't pick them up? These children would be screwed!"

"That's not your call to make Sheriff!" The Captain shouted.

"Sir, I truly believe that if it comes down to it, I could be the bartering chip between the UNSC and the native fauna of this planet." Jack then said, in a monotone voice.

The Captain sighed, 049 did have a point. If he could get the UNSC to be known by the dominating force of the planet, they would have a much easier time trying to get the species to join the UNSC.

"Alright, alright." The Captain said, Pinching the bridge of his nose. "I can see all of you are deadset on this mission, and the few downsides I see are outweighed by the upsides. Just promise me 049, that if I need you at any point in time you will be willing to leave these people."

Jack nodded.

The Captain sighed again. "And I'm guessing you need those two kids in there as well?"

Jack nodded again.

"Right, I'll bring them outside to 'show off' our Pelican, then when they get out here, you four need to scram, understood?"

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

"Right, I'll be back in a moment." The captain said.

As the Captain walked back inside, Rayla stepped out of the Pelican.

"Thanks for the help big guy." Rayla then said, smiling.

"Don't thank me just yet."

**AN: Got some more covenant action, and yes this is going to be for more mature audiences, there will be a lot of adult themes, such as violence and gore. In other news the story will be splitting off from canon at this point, and there will be some noticeable changes in future events.**

**Reviews**

**Guest – Yeah, we'll get there soon, just gotta do some filler stuff first, promise!**

**Next time, expect more from the Elite and Ellie, along with the misadventures of our main cast, this time for real!**


	6. The Escape and The Revalation

**Terra IV**

**December 10****th,**** 2552**

**UNSC Washington**

The Bridge was a mess of Naval Officers and Engineers milling about running reports and diagnostics, trying to fix the ships many problems that have been encountered by a slightly destroyed engine block.

The ship lieutenant was ordering people around, as you do when your captain is currently not on the bridge when one of his comms officers piped up.

"Uh sir, you're going to want to see this." The comms officer said.

"Not now Harrison, it's probably just the ship picking up on system static." The lieutenant said with a sigh.

"But sir! It's a message!"

"That's not possible, we sent out the distress call to earth two days ago. Last I checked it would still be another week before we get any response."

"That's the thing sir…." The officer said. "It's not from earth, its coming from the covenant ship."

That got the lieutenants' attention, he quickly marched over to the comms officer to check out the message himself.

"Shall I play it, sir?" The Officer asked.

"Has it been checked for any potential Malware or any other types of infectious coding?"

"Yes sir, it's been checked and cleared to go. All it needs is for someone to view it."

The lieutenant contemplated at just the mere thought of the enemy of humanity contacting his ship.

"Play it"

On the screen, an elite, decorated in ornate gold and red armor signifying it as that of the shipmaster, started speaking in what could only be claimed as very clean English.

With each passing word, the lieutenant's eyes bulged out of its sockets a little more. An elite? Messaging a human vessel? This had to be a trick! But the elite looked desperate, at least, what passed for desperate for its face.

"Hail the Captain."

"Sir?"

"Hail the Goddamn Captain. Right. Now."

**Holy Garden World "Brutus"**

**9****th**** Age of Reclamation**

**Ruined Human City.**

Gruda exited the building, with the human child on one of his shoulders. In one hand he held a plasma rifle. In the other, the hilt of his sword, just in case.

He scanned the alleyway he was currently in, to the left was a dead end with a wall too high to climb, to his right was the area he originally came from, but going out into the street without his cloak would be suicide, and he simply could not cloak with the child on him.

So, he slowly walked to his right, making sure to be silent. He believed the human understood the situation, so it kept as silent as he was.

Gruda crept up to one of the walls and peered out to the main path through town, there were brutes, brutes everywhere. Each of them armed with their own primitive weapons.

Not that it made any difference, with the route Gruda spotted he would be able to sneak past the Brutes without them noticing.

"Promise me you will not make a single sound, young one," Gruda asked the child.

"Not a peep." The child barely whispered into his ear.

Gruda sprinted to the nearest building on his right, entering inside what looked to be a human store that sold meat, only, the current owner was hanging off one of his own meat hooks by his left shoulder, blood dripping from both the hook and his wound.

From the look of the human, he had died not too long ago. This upset Gruda, another soul he could have saved from those Brutes.

But there was no time to ponder, he needed to move to the back where there was an exit that leads to a side alley he used to get through the brutes unnoticed.

He hoped the smell of the meat and the human would be enough to deter the Brutes from finding him.

He quickly ran to the back of the meat shop, and immediately regretted taking the child with him.

There, on the floor, was a small family of humans.

The grown adult female was completely bare, not wearing any clothes, exposing herself to a shocked look on her face and a spiker round piercing her neck. Gruda scoffed, the Brutes were not ashamed to sexually assault their captured prey.

The next two caused him more worry than their former mother.

The Human male child was beaten in several places and had what looked like bite marks all over its skin. The child was also missing a leg and looked as though its chest was ripped open. He died with tears in his eyes

The final one saddened Gruda.

A Human female, barely older than her brother, also had bite marks covering her body, and one of her breasts was completely torn apart. But the most striking detail was that she was holding on to an emblem, one which appeared to have the family name engraved on it. It reeked of Brute urine, along with the poor child herself.

The child on his shoulders looked away and started shuddering. He could feel the child shaking on his shoulder from the sobs.

Gruda took a thought over the sight he had beholden. He knew the brutes were nothing more than savage monsters but he had never seen the aftermath of a savage brute raid. At least the Elites were dignified with their killings. The last human Gruda killed had a memorial token on him.

Gruda at least had the dignity to place the Human down gently, allowing the Human to clasp it gently before the life faded out of its eyes.

Gruda never believed in this war in the first place. Though he was never open with his suspicions of the hierarchs, he more than believed that the war on the Humans was completely unjust and traitorous.

They hadn't even given the Humans a chance! Just one message, before the covenant moved on Human worlds like a Sangheili moving upon its prey: Swift, clean, and quick.

That was why he was currently trying to rescue as many humans as he could. The humans of this planet weren't even aware that a war was being waged on their species, and yet they paid the price for it in blood. And with current orders for Elites to consider all brutes hostile on site, he was more than happy to oblige that order.

"It is alright child; we are almost out of here." Gruda said calmly.

"But the monsters…" She sniffled. "They'll be out to get me too."

"I will guarantee that they do not make an attempt at your life, when we get to the cities edge, you will follow the trail as far as you can, from there I have a small encampment set up, you shall stay there until I have returned. If I do not, assume the worst, and be ready to travel even further down to the next city."

The child nodded, wiping its face once more.

Gruda opened the exit door, and immediately looked left.

His exit was unblocked, as he'd hoped. He then let the child down from his shoulder.

"Stay by my side youngling, when we get to the end of this alley, you will run right, and I will distract the Brutes long enough for you to make it to the forest. Attempt to conceal yourself as best as possible."

The Child nodded. "Thank you"

"It is my duty as a noble warrior to assure the safety of my allies, you do not need to thank me," Gruda responded valiantly.

They both walked slowly up to the opening, and as soon as Gruda turned the corner Ellis made a run for it.

Gruda Turned the corner and immediately noticed two Brutes staring at what he assumed to be a statue, along with another one staring contempt at a human corpse.

Gruda bellowed a Sangheili war cry, before unholstering his plasma rifle and opening fire on the nearest brute.

The Brute got sprayed by an intense amount of plasma and collapsed on the Human corpse he so obsessed over.

_That beast needed to get a closer look, and I am happy to oblige him. _Gruda thought

The other two Brutes each turned their head over to their comrade, who was no longer with them, and angrily pulled out their spikers.

They were too slow, one of the brutes was silenced before it could pull the trigger, while the other managed to get a small spray of molten hot rods at the elite. Grudas' shields held, and he fired a small burst back at the Brute, who promptly collapsed at the attack.

His Plasma Rifle cooled off, and he put it back in his holster. When he turned around, the child was gone.

…

The door to the cabin opened slightly, and Captain Andrew appeared through the door, closing it behind him before moving back to his seat.

The conversation had switched from the covenant to simply what life was like before first contact.

"Yeah, mate! Roughly 800 worlds!" One of the Marines said, in a thick Australian accent.

"woooah, but if that's the case then why are you here? Why do you need so many worlds if you've got like more than a handful of planets at your disposal?" Ezran asked.

"Simple mate, we need resources to build stuff, and our homeworld was running dry, so the eggheads back home thought 'why not build a lot of spaceships' and now here we are." The Marine mocked.

"That's how we have managed to build such fine vehicles. Like our tanks, or our ships." The Captain added.

Both of the children were awed at the sheer scale of Humanity before the war, and their aunt was more than a little surprised.

"Speaking of, I don't think the boys have got so much as a peep at our Pelican outside. Would you be fine if I were to show them around my bird?" the Captain asked.

Their Aunt hesitated, before signing something.

"I would like it if one of my men would accompany you outside, just to be safe." Her commander said.

"That won't be necessary ma'am, we can handle ourselves. You have my word that no harm will befall these children so long as I breathe." The captain stated firmly.

She looked at the Captain skeptically, one moment passed, then another. All it took was one look down at her nephews' to see they were genuinely interested and damn if those puppy eyes weren't a good convincer.

She nodded at the Captain.

The Captain rose out of his seat. The two Princes followed after him.

Jack was waiting just outside the cargo bay of the Pelican when the door opened. The Captain walked outside, along with the two children in tow.

The Captain nodded towards Jack, and the two boys walked up to him slowly.

"I know about your plan boys, and while I am against it for my own reasons, I have faith you four can bring peace to this world." Captain Andrew said.

Rayla then walked past the right of the Pelican and into the view of Callum and Ezran.

She had a slight smirk on her face, while Ezrans' face lit up and Callum smiled.

"Wait, you said 'four'. I think you miscounted sir." Callum said.

"I will be accompanying you three, for security reasons." Jack piped up.

"That doesn't sound ominous or anything," Ezran said.

Jack huffed out a puff of air.

"Sorry if it sounded that way, but a lot of this stuff is classified kid. Trust me, you don't want to know, it'll bore you out of your mind." Jack said.

Captain Andrew sighed. "When you put it like that 049 it sounds boring, but this is the future of the planet as a whole."

"Man, the stakes are even higher than before, aren't they?" Callum said to no one in particular.

"Just know kid, that doing this means that the UNSC will owe you a favor. Go on, get out of here, before your aunt gets suspicious"

Rayla pointed east, or so Jack's helmet compass said so.

"Come on let's go, Xadia is that way and we don't have time to waste," Rayla said.

With that, our four adventurers took off on the path to the Dragon Queen.

**AN: So, our mysterious elite has a name now? All the pieces are coming together, I first started this off believing that the covenant would be put on the backburner for most of the story but some creative insight has led me to put at least a member of the (Former) Covenant into a main role.**

**Reviews:**

**Guest: Thanks, man! I'll try to keep it that way.**

**Guest: If I republish a chapter without letting you guys know normally it's just some small quality of life changes, I will post in the notes if I make some serious changes to a chapter.**

**Next time: Captain Andrew is in for the surprise of his life, and our elite friend is in for one hell of a surprise of his own. Who's up for some frozen eggs?**


	7. The Bargain and The Fight

**Terra IV.**

**Date: December 11****th,**** 2552.**

**Winter Lodge.**

"Oh, you think so?"

"Oh, for sure, I could definitely beat you in hand to hand."

"All right then mate, let's see what you've got!"

Captain Andrew walked back into the cabin just in time to see one of his Marines hit a guard straight in the jaw, they were both in common boxing stances.

"What the hell is going on here?" The captain shouted.

"I just wanted to prove…" THUMP.

The Marine took a fist straight to his stomach. He then collapsed from the lack of breath.

"Not gonna say I told ya so, but I told ya so." The guardsmen said.

"Is someone going to answer me?" Captain Andrew asked incredulously.

General Amaya then signed something, and the now dubbed "Commander Gren" Translated for her quickly

"I was going to let the boys have some fun and get some action out of their system before we take a long march up to the castle to meet with the King."

"It would have been nice to have a slight warning, I thought something had gone wrong." Captain Andrew responded.

"I didn't want to disturb you while you were busy showing off that flying box, speaking of, where are my nephews?" Commander Gren translated.

"I decided that I'd like the spartan to show them around, figured he'd know a little more about the pelican than I would. I have faith that he can keep them safe, I'd trust him with my own life." Andrew stated

"You seem to place a lot of trust in that 'Spartan' as you call it. Why?" Commander Gren translated.

"I don't think you've seen him in a proper firefight, they fight faster, stronger, and better than any human I've ever heard of, hell I've even seen him fight before, anyone that isn't on his level of combat gets completely wiped over the floor. Literally."

"Is this guy really that tough? I want to challenge him to a fight." Gren Translated.

"No miss, you do not challenge a spartan to a fight and win, he'd fight you but he wouldn't stop at 'winning', he'd stop when you're dead." Captain Andrew stated. "They fight to kill, not to play."

"So, they are superhumans?" Gren said, this time on his own.

"I wouldn't even call Spartans human, they're probably more metal than man at this point," Andrew stated.

"So, you have one of the strongest men in your contingent just out there with my family?" Gren translated.

"Yes ma'am, I told you they were in good hands, that Spartan could beat an army with both of his hands tied behind his back." Captain Andrew stated Matter-of-factly

That frightened Amaya, her face took a look of shock mixed with fear, she signed something quickly before running outside. Gren promptly translated "You let that thing watch over my nieces? What if he suddenly declares them hostile and kills them?

Amaya broke through the door for a second time, and when she got outside all she could think about was finding her two favorite nieces. When they weren't on the outside of the Pelican she ran inside the cargo bay, and when she noticed they weren't there she tried to break down the door to the cockpit, but whatever the door was made out of, it was stronger than her kick, and she instead fell flat onto her butt.

She heard several footsteps running up behind her, and she saw the Captain and his Marine contingent rush outside, followed by her guards. She then signed something, and Gren promptly translated it.

"Where are they?"

"Ma'am I don't know, one minute they were here and the next…" The captain said.

"The elf, she must have killed the Spartan and kidnapped my nieces." Gren translated.

"I'll radio out a warning, that elf will be shot on sight, you have my word." Captain Andrew said.

Silently, under his breath, he muttered _'not that it'll do any good.'_

Suddenly his comm buzzed, and he put a finger up to his ear.

"This is Captain Andrew of the UNSC Washington, go ahead."

"Sir, we need you back on the ship immediately, something has come up."

"My hands are tied down here as is son, I won't…"

"Sir, it's urgent!"

"How urgent?"

"The elites are trying to negotiate with us urgent."

The captain's eyes widened almost immediately. Since when did the covenant ever want even so much as contact with humans? He'd definitely need to leave now.

"I'm sorry General, but we'll have to put this little misstep on hold, something far more important has come up." The Captain stated, then shouting to his pilot "Warm up the engines, we leave in five!"

The Pilot nodded, and all his Marines immediately went back to the lodge to get anything they could before getting on the pelican to go off-world. Meanwhile, General Amaya signed to the Captain, and Gren translated. "What could be more important than my two nieces suddenly going missing?"

"Do you remember what we told you about the covenant? How they wanted nothing more than the extinction of our species?" Amaya nodded.

"The ship they have parked in orbit has opened communications with us, we can't risk losing an opportunity like this, especially when they're trying to negotiate with us. Over god knows what but you get the premise."

The General then signed something to the captain, which was quickly translated. "Take me with."

"What?"

"You heard me right, take me with, if you have a starship that means you have some way to find them, and I want to be there when you do." Gren translated, while Amaya had a look of determination on her face.

The Captain thought it over, he supposed she was right, and there was no getting around this without raising suspicion.

"I will let you onboard my ship, under one condition."

"Name it."

"No matter what happens, you are considered a human, and a part of the UNSC, which means your duty as a soldier comes before your family

Amaya nodded.

… The Next Morning.

Jack had been walking with these kids for less than 24 hours and already he was over the sheer amount of distrust between the two humans and the elf.

Jack had been raised like all other Spartans. Alone a spartan was lethal to an army, but together, a group could stop entire planets.

IF that group coordinated well, and had trust in each other.

"I..." Ezran started, before being cut off by Rayla.

"No, we are not stopping" Rayla responded plainly.

I was actually gonna say I'm…"

"You've got food, we don't need to eat right now."

"Actually, I'm thirsty."

Rayla sighed, before reaching into one of her back pouches.

"Here, drink this."

Rayla handed Ezran a bottle of what looked to be a red-tinted liquid. _'Possibly some kind of berry juice.' _Jack thought.

Callum quickly swatted Ezrans' hand away, before exclaiming "Sorry, we don't drink… That." He said, pointing at the bottle.

"What?" Rayla asked, clearly confused.

"Blood, I mean sure you guys might be into that but we drink… Regular drinks."

"it's not blood! it's moon berry juice! Look."

She nodded towards Ezran, who drank a little out of the bottle, before promptly burping and then giggling.

Jack quietly sighed. This amount of distrust was going to harm unit cohesion, this would have to be fixed fast or something is going to give that will get them all killed.

As he was thinking, the group heard a shout for help from down the road, and everyone except Rayla immediately started rushing down the path forward.

As they got further along the path, they started to notice chunks of wood. They traveled even further and, in the distance, they saw what looked to be a tipped wagon. They quickly rushed up to see what was wrong.

As they ran closer, a man appeared to be frantically trying to push the wagon over, with little success. While his horse just sat there and blew wind out of its mouth. Callum walked up to the man.

"What's wrong? How did you do that?" Callum asked.

"I don't know, one moment I was guiding my wagon along its path when suddenly boom! My wagon was lifted off the ground and flipped like this, I was lucky that I made it out with only a twisted arm." The man said.

Callum went to go push the wagon over, but it was too heavy for him. He then pulled out his Primal stone and put a finger out.

He started carving out a rune in thin air, and as soon as he completed it, he shouted "Aspiro!"

Jack saw a large gust of wind blow out from seemingly nowhere, and it managed to move the cart.

Slightly

Before it fell right back into its old spot.

"That carts gotta weigh at least 5 tons with all that cargo on it, you aren't gonna be tipping that thing over magic or not kid." The man said, haven given up a long time ago.

Jack then slowly walked up to the side of the cart, grabbed at the side, and lifted.

The cart flipped over almost instantly, landing almost perfectly back onto its wheels.

Everyone blinked once, then twice.

Finally, after a lot of slack-jawed awe, they all managed to get out of their stupor.

"How did you do that!? One minute you were all like 'Nah they got this', then the next you were like 'whoosh' and then you barely had to lift a finger and the cart was back on its wheels!" Callum asked excitedly.

"Classified". Jack responded.

"Is everything classified to you?" Callum asked.

"Pretty much."

The man, on the other hand, had to close his mouth with his hand before thanking Jack for helping him flip his cart back over. He reattached the ropes to his horse, and they set off in the opposite direction the group was heading toward.

Rayla appeared out of the trees, she had a stunned look on her face.

"Are all humans like this?" She asked.

"I wish, then we would be the ones ruling Xadia, and not the elves." Callum responded snarkily.

"You do know I'm right here." Rayla said, with not but a hint of sarcasm.

"Oh yeah, sorry I thought you were still hiding in the trees." Callum accused.

"If any humans so much as see me, this whole journey will be for nothing! Don't you get that I am an Elf in human territory?"

"Maybe if you wouldn't have shown up at all we wouldn't be in this mess!" Callum shouted.

"ENOUGH" Ezran shouted, very loudly.

Callum and Rayla both looked at Ezran and immediately felt guilty for what they were doing. Ezran had tears streaming down his face, and he had a less than pleased look on his face.

"We are supposed to be the people that unify the land, and yet here we are arguing amongst each other like the animals we each view the other to be!" Ezran exclaimed.

Rayla found the dirt beneath her shoes to be a spot to stare at, while Callum took a look at his brother, wide-eyed.

"No, Ez, I'm sorry, I didn't me…" Callum tried to get out, before getting cut off by Ezran

"NO! It's clear you two can't do this without bickering! So, I'll bring this egg to its mom on my own!"

He then started running full speed ahead down the path, hoping that wherever this path took him, it would be far enough away from his stupid brother and that dumb elf that he could be alone.

"No, Ez wait!" Callum shouted, and began running before Jack stopped him.

"The kid has a point, you two need to work this thing out, I'll go find your brother," Jack said.

"But he's my brother! I nee…" Callum said, before being interrupted by Jack.

"No, you sit here and do not move until you two can learn to get along. You two did this, and now you two need to fix this." Jack said, less than enthused.

Callum looked down to the ground, and sighed.

"Right, just please go make sure my brother stays safe."

"I will be right back, I promise," Jack responded.

Jack ran off at a half sprint down the path. Callum faced Rayla, who was currently rubbing her arm while looking down towards the ground.

"I'm… sorry about what I said." Callum looked down at the ground. "You're a very important part of the team, and I doubt we could have found the egg without your help, let alone get it across the border to Xadia in one piece."

"No, Callum. I'm the one that should be sorry. I got you all into this mess knowing full well that what I was doing was wrong."

"But you didn't, you helped us get out of so many situations when you could have just taken the egg and ran! I can't believe I didn't see it until now but maybe, just maybe, not all elves are bad." Callum said.

"I guess maybe not all humans are evil, terrible, black magic-users as well," Rayla responded, with a slight giggle.

…

Ezran ran, and ran, and ran. As far as his little legs could carry him. Soon enough his legs got tired, and he had to take a break from running when he noticed smoke in the distance, lots of smoke.

He heard footsteps behind him and looked back to see Jack right behind him. Ezran almost took off running again, before Jack said "Wait"

"They're not following me, I told them I'd come to get you myself while they worked things out. I think we've got a little bit of time to hang out before they catch up to us."

Ezran pointed over to the smoke, looking afraid. "What if there's something really big on fire? Like a house? Or a barn? Imagine all the poor chickens getting hurt!"

Jack looked up, and he too noticed the smoke billowing over the horizon, that was a lot of smoke, more than one house fire. He needed to go investigate further ahead.

"You stay here, and wait for your brother and his friend to get to you, I'm going to go investigate what's going on up ahead," Jack said.

He entered a full-on sprint, which looked like a flash moving to Ezran.

…

Around a minute of running lead him to an opening. The path lead up toward a village, which currently looked like the aftermath of a bad accident, houses were burning everywhere.

But what really got Jack was what he noticed next.

Bodies.

Lots of Human bodies.

This got Jacks' nerves running.

That meant that whatever was here wasn't just out to get the people's money and loot.

They were here with the intent to kill.

Then he saw it, something he'd hope to never see on this planet.

A Brute, wearing ornate golden armor and carrying a Bruteshot. He was marching, patrolling the current area he was in.

The Brute was around one hundred meters away from Jack, a quick and clean kill with the Battle Rifle he was carrying if he could land the headshots.

He knew it had the chance of only pissing the brute off, but he was willing to risk it. If the covenant were here, he had to assume the worst, and clear out the town before this group could lay siege to another town.

He shot at the brute, his rifle clacking with the burst.

Each shot landed perfectly center of the brain, and the Brute promptly collapsed. Luck was on his side, he supposed.

He moved further into the town and promptly got even more confused.

Not only were there the corpses of Humans but in hidden areas, he saw Brute corpses as well.

Perhaps someone who was a trained assassin was trying to kill off as many of the Brutes without them noticing?

He ducked from alleyway to alleyway, with each passing moment he got further and further into the belly of the beast. Killing any Brutes he could find, mostly with his shotgun, sometimes with his trusty combat knife.

He managed to hole up in what appeared to be a church that had a bell tower. Peering out of it he had a clear view of the Center of town.

It was a statue, of what appeared to be a knight pushing a sword into the ground in front of him. Surrounding the statue were a lot of brutes, all held together by a chieftain.

The Brutes were clearly on edge, as they all had their weapons drawn.

Where were the rest? What about the jackals? Or the Grunts? Hell, he missed the elites at this point.

His shotgun was running low on shells. His battle rifle would have to suffice for now, seeing as he still had more than a few clips to spare.

He started shooting at one of the more decorated Brutes, and they all got startled when one of their comrades dropped.

Thank whatever power above that these guns all came with built-in muzzle flashes.

Thanks to the mountain range nearby, his gun echoed like crazy. And to the Brutes at the plaza, it sounded like the bullets were coming from every direction.

Each one fell one by one. All that remained were the chieftain and his two closest subordinates.

He fired his battle rifle again, and one of them dropped dead on the spot with a clean burst blasting a chunk of the brutes' brain against the concrete below.

The chieftain finally got a bead on where the Spartan was, thanks to the majority of his annoying and loud comrades being dead.

He pointed up to Jack, and his remaining subordinate fired his Brute Shot at the bell tower, causing it to collapse with Jack still inside.

Jack's shield flared, they would take the majority of the debris, but that wasn't what he was scared of.

He quickly turned his helmet forward to see that the chieftain was slowly walking up to the downed spartan, with his lackey in tow.

The chieftain raised his gravity hammer and loudly proclaimed "The puny demon fell in one shot! Your kind means nothing!" The chieftain loudly exclaimed, laughing.

Jack raised his hands to cover himself. This was it, he was finally going to die, at least he took as many of those bastards as he could with him.

Right before the end came a burst of plasma hit the chieftains back, causing him to miss the Spartan by a wide margin.

The chieftain's shields held, but he was forced to turn around and face this new opponent. When he looked back, he saw his last comrade dead, felled by an elite.

A zealot!

The chieftain bellowed a hideous war cry and charged after the elite.

This bought Jack enough time to dig himself out from the rubble that had buried him when he got to a risen position. He ran outside.

…

Gruda had just opened fire on the Brute Chieftain and had just expended the last of his battery on its shields.

As the chieftain charged him, he ignited his energy sword. Gruda then bellowed an old Sangheili war cry before counter charging the brute.

The chieftain swung his hammer down, causing a shockwave that Gruda deftly dodged, before slashing his sword at the Chieftains chest.

It did little more than anger the brute, who dug his hammer out of the ground and quickly side swept the elite with the bladed edge of the hammer.

Gruda was barely able to dodge the blade and was unable to dodge what came afterward.

The Brute spun around and immediately put all of its power into raising the hammer and dropping it on Gruda as fast and as hard as possible.

Gruda was sent flying.

He hit the ground not far from where he was originally launched. Gruda struggled to crawl backward, and eventually found himself hitting the edge of the platform that held the statue up.

"Your worthless, pathetic race was never worthy of the great journey! Your kind will perish, as they should have long ago." The brute jeered.

Then Gruda heard a large blast and saw the chieftain jolt forward. Gruda peered to the side of the Brute and saw the demon opening fire on the Brute with his weapon.

Each shot tore more and more plates off the Brutes armor, and he fell down to a kneel.

Gruda quickly got up and withdrew his energy sword again, charging the Brute while he was down.

His blade pierced the Brutes' chest, and he heard the brute give off one last growl, before collapsing onto the ground, dead.

**AN: And that's a wrap, folks! My longest chapter yet, filled with nitty-gritty details and the runs! Also, we got some spice running up between Callum and Rayla.**

**Next Time: Amaya becomes the first Human to board a starship from Terra IV, and the Zealot and the Spartan are gonna get to do some rather harsh interacting, and maybe our heroes will get their first view of an alien.**


	8. The Washington and The Reclaimer

**Terra IV.**

**Date: December 11****th****, 2552.**

**Winter Lodge.**

The Marines had just finished packing everything up and were marching out of the cabin. Each and every one of them had brought with them very little and as such were taking away little more.

General Amaya was relaying orders to her troops, commander Gren would be in charge of her platoon in her absence, and they would march back to the breach, where they would attempt to defend the outpost from any potential elven incursions.

"Are you ready to go?" Captain Andrew Asked.

Amaya nodded.

The pilot started up the pelicans' engines, and the Captain, his Marine contingent, and Amaya boarded the Pelicans crew bay, sitting down before buckling themselves in, all except Amaya, who simply sat down on one of the side chairs.

"Amaya, would you like to see what it's like to go from ground to space in 30 seconds?" The Captain asked.

Amaya looked around for a second, before nodding her head, it would be a pleasant surprise.

Captain Andrew got up from his seat and walked up to the cockpit, with Amaya in tow.

Right as the door closed behind them the Pelican took off, faster than Amaya would have thought, and it started taking a sixty-degree angle upwards, quickly climbing through the clouds and going even further.

Amaya's eyes opened wide, the blue sky she was so used to quickly turned cyan, then black, as they exited the atmosphere of her home planet.

She walked up to the glass, almost pressing her face against it, down below she saw her planet, her beautiful home.

Then she looked up and saw the wide vastness of space, and all that it encompassed. It was empty, so empty. And yet, it was so full of life out there, amongst the stars.

She smiled, knowing that she was not the only person that was doing this, that no matter what was going on, someone was entering space for their very first time.

Then she saw the ship they were heading towards, at first it was just a little dot, like all the other stars in the sky, but as they got closer more features became discernible. Such as the color, a dull grey-black, and blocky. Really, really blocky.

Finally, they got so close that she realized this ship was way bigger than she thought it was. It easily dwarfed the Pelican she was in and she felt calm knowing it also dwarfed the size of what she thought was the largest living thing on her planet, the Dragon King.

The Pelican moved along the side of the ship, and she saw a very large engraving on the side that she believed was English for UNSC Washington, so this was the captains ship then.

They entered one of the Hangar bays of the Washington, and she immediately felt the strange pull of gravity again. She looked out to see the hangar bay was full of people dressed in full-body outfits for which she could only guess the purpose.

The door behind her opened, and the Captain started walking out. Amaya quickly followed him.

As soon as she exited the cockpit, she noticed the Marines were grabbing things off the railing above their seats, mostly weapons, but some were pieces of technology and some just simply grabbed bags and luggage.

She slowly walked off the ramp of the pelican, and immediately felt tiny.

The hangar was huge, easily enough to fit a small village inside of, but instead of housing, it was full of more Pelicans like the one she rode off in, and a few other flat vehicles she could only assume were used to defend the pelicans if the weapons it was armed with was anything to go off of.

But she was not meant to stay, as she saw the group walking through one of the doors on the wall.

She quickly ran through the door and noticed that even the hallways were decently sized. Enough to fit a whole Banther in its halls.

She followed the group to what appeared to be the central hub of the ship, where people of all creeds and colors were milling about, performing basic tasks and pressing buttons on their panels.

This confused Amaya.

Why did they only need two people to fly the Pelican, but it took around ten people to drive this massive ship?

She guessed the immense size had something to do with that. But she was not one to ponder, as the Captain started talking to his lieutenant she started looking around.

She saw so many things. From screens that displayed the ship, to people patting away on buttons. Upon getting a closer look they were actually typing letter onto their screen, very fast, might she add.

'_So, this is what the future looks like?' _she pondered. '_Maybe it isn't all bad then.'_

"I need you all to be at attention for this, and be silent. For those of you that have not already been made aware, the covenant ship we so valiantly fought has attempted to contact us, with the request of negotiations. This could be a trap, or it could be a simple plea for help, from one species to another. They offered us no kindness so we are not obliged to help them, but I would at least like to hear them out." The Captain proclaimed to the entire bridge crew.

"Open a secure channel to their cruiser, Ensign." The Captain then told to the comms officer.

A minute passed, then suddenly in front of the captain a large shimmer of blue static started rippling, before it became solid.

And in that solid image Amaya saw something she didn't think she would ever get to see. It was a reptile of some sort, lacking in any hair or fur, and it had an overly hunched position. It had what looked like 4 lips that each spread apart to make it look like a monstrous sandworm.

An Alien

"You have one chance to explain yourself, Elite."

"I have already told my intentions to your kind in my distress call, do what you will with that information but all I ask is that I have a guarantee of your help in the coming days." The elite stated plainly.

"And why should we trust you?"

"I understand that you do not trust me or my kind, but I do not wish to fight you and your ship any longer, the covenant has fallen, and we have all been lied to by the Holy Prophets."

The Captain had a look of subdued shock on his face, he quickly coughed before returning neutral.

"How do you know this, and why should I believe you?"

"It has been spread all over the covenant Battle-net, of Humans and Elites working side-by-side to stop the culling waves of the Brutes and their insufferable civil war they brought upon us. I will send you a data packet with all the necessary information if you do not believe me."

Amaya noticed a little red man dressed in what she thought was some kind of old fashion trend appeared from a pedestal to the Captain's right.

"Data packet is clear captain, and the Elite isn't lying, at least from what I can tell." Sheriff said.

The Captain nodded, taking in all the information he had just been told.

"What say we help you, what would we be helping you with, and what would you be willing to do in return?"

"I only wish for your true assistance in the matters of culling the hordes of brutes both planetside and on my ship, after that, I will simply ask that you help us repair our ship, in return we will help you fix yours, and then leave this system when possible."

The Captain nodded down to sheriff, who nodded back to the Captain.

"How can we be of assistance?"

...

Callum and Rayla quickly caught up to Ezran, walking along the path.

Ezran heard their footsteps approaching, and when he looked back, he regretted it almost immediately.

"Hey, Ez". Callum said quietly

"Go away," Ezran said, pouting while staring to the ground behind him.

"Look, I'm sorry we were fighting okay? If we are in this we are in this together, and nothing will get in our way." Callum said, putting a hand on Ezrans' shoulder.

"Do you really mean it?" Ezran questioned warily.

"Yeah man, we totally mean it. We're a team now." Rayla piped up.

They all joined together for a group hug. Callum had both of his arms around Ezran, who quickly returned the favor, while Rayla awkwardly joined in from the side.

They stayed conjoined for what felt like minutes, before finally letting go of each other.

"Wait, where's the tin man?" Rayla asked.

"He said he was gonna go further ahead, check out what's going on over there," Ezran said, pointing at a large mass of smoke rising in the distance.

"Wait, hold on. He said he was going to find you and bring you back to us, that Liar!" Callum said accusingly.

"I don't know dude, that smokes been there for a while, and it has only gotten worse," Ezran said, with a slight hint of worry.

Rayla and Callum both looked at each other, and they both had looks of concern on their faces.

"We need to go; he hasn't come back yet and he said he was just going to check it out," Callum said, worried for the Spartan. "We need to go make sure he is okay."

Rayla nodded, pulling out her swords. Callum looked down at his little brother, who also nodded. He pulled out his Primal stone and prepared for the worst.

They walked down the path a small way and the closer they got the more they heard a noise, a trio of clacks that sounded close and yet really far away.

They got closer to the smoke and eventually noticed that the smoke was getting thick, and darker. That meant something big was burning.

They then started running, until they reached what looked to be a town, at least it used to be a town. A majority of the buildings were either on fire or already collapsed, but that wasn't the weird part.

The weird part was the lack of people.

There was no one outside, either they had fled this village, or…

No.

That wasn't right.

Bandits don't go for whole towns, and they don't leave them in ruins when they do.

'_Somethings wrong' _Callum thought.

They started slowly walking up the path to the center of town, and they still didn't find a single soul, not one peep from any of the people that lived here.

Then Rayla suddenly stopped them, her ears twitching.

"Shhhh, I heard something" Rayla whispered

"But we weren't tal…" Callum said, before getting cut off by another shush.

She crouched down lower to the ground, and pulled out her butterfly daggers, before slowly and methodically moving forward. Ezran shrugged before moving behind her quietly. Callum sighed and took up the back of the group.

They snuck into an alleyway, and there they found their first person.

Or rather, what was left of them.

Rayla tried to block out the view from Ezran, but the attempt was futile as he had already seen the man.

The body was ripped open by the chest, the ribs exposed to the world, and had its intestines hanging off the side of the body. Like some kind of wild animal had bitten into him and decided that the human would make for a fine meal.

Callum had to avert his eyes, this wasn't the first time he'd seen a dead body, but never one so gruesomely torn up like that.

Ezran threw up whatever he had left in his stomach, and started gagging horribly.

Rayla simply sighed, before walking up to the corpse. It had been dead for a long while that much she figured.

"We need to keep going, if we get to the center, we'll have a better time figuring out what happened here," Rayla said.

They continued down the alley until they reached the other side. It had an opening that lead to what appeared to be the center of town, with a very large statue.

And lots of bodies.

Although a majority of them were not Human, or rather they were very large and very hairy Humans. Each one of them was lying in a pool of their own blood, and that pool only got bigger. They were very fresh kills.

Then she heard a voice.

"Kill me demon, and restore honor to your species."

…

The chieftain fell to the ground, covered in bullet holes and bleeding from almost every pore. The elite was bent over, pulling the blade out of the Chieftains chest.

Jack cocked his shotgun and pointed it directly at the Elite, who quickly looked up at the Spartan. But instead of moving it simply stood there gripping onto its lower abdomen.

It then spoke, "Kill me demon, and restore honor to your species."

Jack had his index finger on the trigger, ready to pull it.

But he didn't

"Why didn't you let me die back there? That Brute had the perfect chance to get rid of me, but instead, you risked your own life and decided to draw his attention." Jack said to the Elite.

"I would never have been able to take that Brute out on my own, not with the rest of his pack on edge. You managed to eliminate most of them before you were found out."

Jack lowered his shotgun slightly, he knew this Elite didn't want him dead, and he had a reason for it now.

"But why were you here in the first place? Why take on all these Brutes if you could have just left." Jack questioned.

"I was told by my shipmaster that we are to consider all Jiralhanae hostile. Along with the revelation that the Holy Covenant was forced to fight a war based on lies, our ship decided to mutiny. The Brutes took any vehicles with them, tried to scuttle our ship, and are now trying to kill all the Humans of this planet to follow through on the Holy Prophets orders. They are still loyal to the covenant, like the pets they are." The Elite said.

"That doesn't explain why you are here, one single Elite in a town besieged by Brutes, you could have just left the town to burn," Jack said, with a hint of suspicion.

"Because I was trying to rescue as many of your kind as I could." The Elite responded.

That completely stunned Jack. _'Why would an Elite be helping us out?'_

"Unfortunately, by the time I arrived I was too late, I only managed to save one survivor." The Elite added.

"Who," Jack asked plainly.

"A child." The Elite answered.

"Where are they," Jack asked plainly again.

There was Silence.

He aimed his shotgun back up at the Elites' face.

"Killing me now will not save that girl, you will need to try harder than empty threats." The Elite said.

"Hold on! Don't shoot!" Jack heard and recognized the voice immediately.

It was the Elf, Rayla.

Both the Elite and the Spartan turned their heads to look at the sudden intruder, and saw her running up to them both with her hands raised in front of her.

"Killing him won't change anything! We need to hear him out!" Rayla exclaimed.

The Elite simply bowed its head lower. "I am not worthy of your pity; we have wronged your kind many times before."

Jack lowered his shotgun to standby. "You're right, you aren't worthy of pity, but it's clear you want to right the wrongs you've done to Humanity."

The Elite looked up, with what looked like a shocked expression on its face, before simply huffing.

Jack reached out a hand, and the Elite caught it roughly. Jack pulled the Elite up to a standing position, where it stood just a little bit shorter than him, due to its hunched posture.

"Why do you choose to spare me demon, I have done more wrongs to your kind then I can make up in one life." The elite asked, clearly uncomfortable with the situation it is in.

"Because I understand. You know what you have done was wrong, and are trying your best to fix it. For that you have my dignity, and my respect." Jack said, standing straight.

"How do you wish me to repay this massive debt you have incurred upon me?" The Elite asked.

Jack simply nodded to Rayla, who understood immediately what he was getting at.

"We need help, all the help we can get," Rayla said, beckoning Ezran and Callum to walk out of the alley they originally came from, Ezran had a smile on his face, while Callum just smirked.

"We are trying to deliver the egg of the dragon king back to its mother, it's going to be a long journey." Rayla continued.

"I will lead you back to my camp, from there I will pack up my supplies and head towards your destination. I am at your service." The Elite said, simply.

**AN: Ayyy, so now the Elite is part of the group. And Amaya is now possibly one of the first ever born on Terra IV to be on a starship. Possibly anyways. ;)**

**Reviews:**

**Guest – The first chapter is mostly filled with dialogue because I needed to add some exposition to the story so readers aren't left completely clueless as to what's going on. I try to remind myself that not everyone reading this has played any of the Halo games, or read any of its books, and vice-versa with The Dragon Prince. I'll let you all know if I do any editing for the first chapter.**

**Next Time: Human Boarding Parties and stories by the campfire, did anyone bring the marshmellows?**


	9. The Silent Hero and The Calm Night

**Terra IV**

**Date: December 11****th****, 2552**

**UNSC Washington**

The hangar bay was full of deck crew and soldiers rushing around and getting ready before final checks. It was akin to a beehive, or something close to the Human version of one. Amaya never ceased to be amazed by how fast these people could work while in such a small area.

Pelicans were warming up for takeoff, and soldiers were loading their weapons and filling their bags with food and the odd explosive here and there. It was like each member was part of some very organized and very efficient machine, each cog grinding perfectly in unison.

The Captain walked to the back of the lead pelican and turned around to face every one of his men. His lieutenant shouted, "CAPTAIN ON DECK." Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing to turn to the Captain and salute.

"At ease, everyone." The Captain stated. "We all know why we're here, at least I hope we all do. The plan is simple, you will all be boarding the Covvies' cruiser, from there you will attempt to move on further into the belly of the beast. Remember ladies and gents, only the Brutes are to be considered kill on sight, all the others are to be considered friendly unless proven hostile. I don't want any accidents on our first mission with the Elites."

Some of the Marines hollered, while others just shouted Oorah, before loading up on the Pelicans. Amaya entered the lead Pelican, although she was technically a General, she would not be leading these troops into battle.

No, she would be fighting alongside them and taking orders like the rest of them.

Amaya had never used a firearm before, and it took a while for her to get accustomed to the fact that these powerful weapons were mainstream items to the UNSC, and not some valuable commodity.

She was trained in trigger discipline, which was easy. Reloading the gun was also easy, especially with the Assault Rifle she was given. Just pop a magazine in, and boom. Gun go bang.

She was told not to worry about the gun breaking or jamming, as the technology used to build the gun made it near impossible for the gun on its own to jam. Just in case she was shown how to unjam the gun, which was also incredibly simple.

Her armor was, to put it simply, Durable against bullets but not good against plasma and heat. She got her armor slightly retrofitted so that if a stray bolt of plasma were to hit it, the armor would not melt onto her skin and give her more than a rash burn to think about.

Instead, it was reinforced with a Titanium-3 Alloy, making it incredibly durable, almost like the Mjolnir Mark VI Powered Armor, with the notable exceptions of it being slightly less heavy, and therefore being slightly less strong, only enough to shrug off two or three direct hits from a plasma bolt before the armor would melt and fall apart.

Her armor alone was a scientific anomaly, no metal plating should be able to bend like that, but when the Titanium was applied it bent just as easily as a second pair of clothing. This not only baffled the engineers but gave them a renewed purpose as to figuring out how that armor can make such thick metals bend so easily.

Her armor took on a light green-grey look, with an intricate pattern placed on it the armor that the soldiers claimed was "Camouflage", but she was confident was actually just to help identify their own people. It also looked slightly bulkier by the arms and legs, and her shoulder armor was trimmed down slightly to add more room for maneuverability.

Other than that, her armor looked unchanged, besides the coloring.

Amaya had started to learn about the squad she was going to be working with on this mission, and she felt confident knowing she would be with people who had fought the covenant before.

Her team loaded up into the lead Pelican, they would be the first squad in the cruiser, and they would make first contact with an elite spec ops team that would guide them to the bridge to help the shipmaster purge his ship of the Brute pests.

She put her gun on the rack above her seat and sat down. The rest of her squad did the same, and the pilot did one last routine check before firing up the engines. The Pelican lurched forward, and Amaya got out of her seat to walk to the front cabin.

As soon as she walked through the door, she saw the cruiser they were going to be boarding. It was large, even larger than the Washington, and it was a deep shade of purple, and looked like a much more natural shape than the Washington's design.

The Pelican entered the shield of the Battlecruiser, and Amaya noticed that there were shots being fired from one side of the Hangar to the other. She quickly ran to the hold of the Pelican and grabbed her weapon, before the Pilot shouted over the comms "We're going in hot ladies! Prep your gear!"

All of the Marines quickly stood up from their seated positions and grabbed their weapons of their respective rail. Many clicks and smacks told Amaya that everyone was readied up.

The Pelican started shaking, and it quickly shuddered to a halt. Then the back ramp fell, and the Marines quickly exited the Pelican and swept their surroundings.

To the right, a couple of Elites were holed up with some grunts as an acting backup, and to the left more than a few brutes were firing upon both the elites and the newly found Humans. The squad leader quickly yelled at them all to take cover on the right side of the pelican, and for any of them with more ranged weapons to pour the lead out.

A majority of them managed to get behind the Pelican in time, but one of the Marines got hit in the shoulder with a stray rod from one of the Brutes' Spikers, causing him to keel over from the pain. The nearest Marine pulled him out from the open and down to cover.

Amaya looked around, trying to find a better vantage point to start using her rifle. She hooked around to the nose of the pelican and quickly peeked her head out of cover. She noticed three Brutes on a higher layer of the Hangar, all armed with Brute shots. And a small squadron of Brutes on the ground floor, with two of them pushing up to the pelican, armed with Brute spikers.

She aimed out of cover and started trying to burst down one of the Brutes, but to no avail as each bullet either ricocheted off the armor or simply didn't register as the Brutes continued pushing forward almost unhindered. One of the Elites noticed what she was doing and shot a glob of Plasma at the Brute, hitting it on the chest.

Amaya noticed the armor spark and sputter and took a chance. She started firing on the Brute, and instead of the bullets bouncing, each of them found a home in the Brutes stomach. The Brute staggered and eventually fell after quite a few rounds were poured into it.

The kill was clean, but there were still a lot more brutes to go, and she knew that even with all the ammo she had on her, it wouldn't be enough.

Then she looked back to her allies, who were all either returning fire or currently in cover, with the notable exception of the teams' medic, who was tending to the wounded soldier.

Then she saw movement behind her, and aimed her rifle backward.

An Elite had pushed up to join the Humans, and a majority of the soldiers stopped firing to look at the Elite.

It was wearing White armor and was holding a plasma rifle in each hand, it also had an oddly shaped crest for a helmet. It peeked out of cover and started firing at the Brutes, its' shield flaring up as a stray spike grazed its form.

"Quit gawking at the Elite boys! Help em push the bloody Brutes back!" The squad leader shouted, to which some of the Marines closed their open mouths and returned fire at the Brutes, while some of the Marines still just stood there with total shock on their eyes.

Amaya peaked out of cover again and started firing at the nearest Brute, who was very far out of cover and still trying to push to the Pelican. A quick spray of gunfire made sure that Brute was not getting up any time soon.

The Elite pulled out what appeared to be a blue ball that fits in the palm of its hand, and threw it at the second layer where the Commanding Brutes were. The Grenade landed on the Bridge, but not anywhere near where the Brutes were. One of the Brutes stopped firing to point and laugh at the Pitiful attempt at a throw.

Then the grenade detonated, destroying one of the only supports keeping the second layer up, and the bridge promptly collapsed, falling to pieces and crushing a majority of the Brutes that were using cover underneath the former bridge.

The firefight came to an abrupt halt, and the Marines took the time to recuperate and push up, with guns locked and loaded they pushed out of their cover, and were met with no resistance.

The Marines looked around at the destruction that was caused by one plasma grenade, all the Brutes that were crushed were for sure dead, some even carved clean in half. While two of the three that were on the second level were impaled on pieces of debris, but the last on survived the fall and was lucky to be alive.

It attempted to crawl to its Bruteshot, pieces of its golden armor falling off in the process. Right before it could grab the Bruteshot a hooved two-toed foot stomped down on the brutes' arm, making it cry out in pain.

The Elite fired one bolt of plasma from its weapon, and the Brute was forever silenced.

More of the Elites started moving out from their cover and joined their commander in finishing off any Brutes that were still alive.

The Grunts held the backline, ambling about and blubbering words in their own little language.

The Elites all gathered up into a semi-circle and started doing what could only be identified as some kind of ritual dance, where they started chanting and raising their hands up to the sky.

The Marines all just worriedly looked at each other, some had sweat dripping down their brows, while others just stared wide-eyed at the cult gathering going on before them.

The ritual ended, and the white armored Elite walked up to the Current squad commander, its footsteps sounded louder than they actually were.

"Are you the commander of this regiment?" The Elite asked.

The Commander just looked at the Elite, slack-jawed, before snapping out of his haze and promptly answering the question. "Yes, sir. That would be me, Staff Sergeant First Class Chancey Vasquez."

The Elite looked at the marine for a second, before turning around and beckoning for the Marines to follow him. "The Shipmaster is this way, follow us."

The Elites went through the door, weapons drawn, and after scanning the hallway of hostiles started marching down the hallway. The Marines followed after the Elites slowly, still wary of their presence.

The sound of boots and armor hitting the floor was deafening in the quiet hallway, each step set Amaya more and more on edge, if there was going to be an ambush, it would happen here, while they were all either unaware or occupied.

Only, nothing came. The march to the bridge of the ship was relatively quiet, too quiet for Amaya's liking, but she would deal with that for now.

The door to the bridge opened, and Amaya noticed how different the bridge was from the Washington's bridge. There was a ramp that leads up to a single console that was currently being operated on by a weird floating tentacle alien, and behind that alien was the shipmaster, who was wearing gold and red armor with a long flowing red cape behind him.

"So, you are the strike team your shipmaster sent to be under my command?" The Shipmaster asked.

The Marines' squad leader nodded, before saying "Aye, sir."

"I am sorry about the problem you had in the Hangar, a majority of the Brutes still on board attempted a breakout on what few phantoms we have left. And I thank you for assisting my commander in repelling that force." The Shipmaster explained, before sighing.

"It wasn't a problem sir, we're glad to help you guys out." The Marine said, with just a hint of concern in his voice.

"With the majority of our teams combined taking out any remaining stragglers on my ship, that leaves us with the rest that are on the Planet, and there are far more down there than were on my holy ship." The Shipmaster explained. "I will coordinate forces with your shipmaster, you may all head back to your boarding craft."

Amaya was both confused and concerned, that meant there were more of them on her planet. And seeing how the Brutes fought it would mean that a lot of both her people and the Xadians would be killed. This was going to be a bloody war, that much she knew for sure.

The Troops all walked out of the Bridge after being addressed and marched down the hall to their Pelican. Again, the noise was deafening and put Amaya off.

Only this time, her senses saved her.

She heard a noise to her right and immediately ducked. A Gravity hammer flew over her head mere moments later, and hit the wall it swung out from. Amaya was knocked off her feet from the blast but was otherwise uninjured.

A Brute Chieftain emerged from a hole in the wall, its big black armor leaving an imposing figure on the Humans, it beckoned a horrible war cry, before charging at the nearest Marine.

The poor guy didn't stand a chance, as the hammer hit him in the side, turning his insides to mush before throwing him against the wall, dead before impact. It then went for a swing with the bladed side, trying to carve another Marine in half. The Marine managed to dodge it, if only barely.

Amaya was still behind the Brute from its first swing, it thought she was dead. She pulled out her combat knife and slowly got up, walking quietly over to the brute, who was currently laughing at two of the Marines who were shooting at the Brute with scared looks in their eyes, while the Brutes shields simply flared in protest.

She climbed up the Brutes back. The Brute could not do anything about it, he dropped his hammer and tried to pull Amaya off, but his arms simply could not reach far enough behind. She dug her knife into the Brutes' throat. Blood seeped out from the wound.

Yet the Brute stood firm, not backing down from the challenge.

The Brute backed up, smashing Amaya between him and the wall of the hallway. Amaya screamed out in pain, before pulling her knife out and digging it back in, hoping to hit a major vein.

The Brute finally managed to get a hold of her right leg, before quickly pulling her off of him and throwing her down to the ground, with her knife still embedded in his throat. Amaya finally tumbled to the floor, and the Brute roared at her.

She quickly looked around, and saw the Gravity Hammer directly to her right, she reached for it and managed to get hold of it. The Brute Roared again and charged at Amaya. In a still crawling position Amaya used both of her hands to swipe at the Brutes legs with the hammer, and instead of just hitting its legs the Gravity Hammer went off, causing the Brute to not only trip but fly down the hallway a bit.

Meanwhile, Amaya felt like her shoulder was dislocated, and quickly stood up using one hand to balance herself. She quickly put her shoulder back into place, much to the dismay of the medic, and picked up the Gravity Hammer.

The Brute was now further away, and currently trying to get up. Amaya simply ran at the Brute with the Gravity Hammer in hand, and right as the Brute got to a kneeling position, she swung down at the Brute, causing the Hammer to go off again.

All that was left of the Brute was a puddle of bones and blood.

Amaya quickly recovered from the Hammer going off, and this time she didn't hurt anything, though it was still going to take a while before she would get used to this much recoil with a melee weapon.

All the Marines looked at her shocked, by all accounts they should have been dead. But Amaya had other plans and saved most of them from a horrible death, most.

She looked over to the field medic, who was simply closing the eyes of the slumped Marine who had just died not too long ago, waving his head no, the squad leader beckoned for the forces to continue on, and this time Amaya would take point.

The walk back was far quieter, and this time Amaya could feel safer knowing she could use her current melee weapon better than she could a rifle.

They reached the Pelican without incident and loaded everyone up. The Pilot gave a final check, and they launched back into space, with their destination being the Washington.

…

**Holy Garden World "Brutus"**

**9****Th**** Age of Reclamation**

**Grudas' Camp.**

Gruda had made a small fire for the child previously before going out again to hunt more Brutes, and upon returning had noticed the child was doing significantly better than before. She had some wild pig in her belly and was silently sipping on some water Gruda had to spare.

The child was startled at first to see his presence, but when she noticed it was him, she smiled at him and got up, running to Gruda before opening her arms wide.

To say Gruda was confused was an understatement.

"What do you need, young one?" Gruda asked, with a little hint of concern in his voice.

"I want to hug you, for making it back!" The child said, with happiness coursing in her voice.

"A… Hug?" Gruda asked, very confused.

"Yeah, I put my arms around you and you put your arms around me!" The child said enthusiastically.

"Oh, I… I see" Gruda knelt down, before wrapping his arms stiffly around the child's back, and she returned the favor.

"Aww look, the big guy has a heart after all," Jack said from behind Gruda, sarcastically.

The child let go quickly and backed away from the Elite before getting a scared look on her face.

"You are alright child, these are some… friends I have picked up from my most previous journey into the town." Gruda said, before moving out of the way so she could get a better look at everyone who was there.

The first one she noticed was the Spartan, who looked like a giant Human who was wearing some very blocky and mean-looking armor. The second one she noticed put her on edge even more.

It was an elf, the hated enemy of mankind.

Though her posture was relaxed, and she was with three Humans, so, for now, she would not question why there was an elf here, especially because of Gruda's pure existence.

The next one was a boy, who looked older than her but younger than her father. He was wearing a blue hoodie with a red undershirt and a pair of pants and was wearing fingerless gloves.

The last one was a child, closer to her age if she had to guess, who was wearing a brown coat and had a large backpack behind him.

"I think it would be best if we stay here for the night and travel in the morning, I know I for one would love to go to bed after all of that." The boy with the blue hoodie said, yawning.

Almost everyone unanimously agreed that this was smart, and Gruda had more than enough sleeping bags for everyone, seeing as he had come prepared to evacuate a whole town. Callum and Ezran immediately took a sleeping bag and went into one of the tents, while the others gathered around the campfire.

Rayla put her hands out to the fire, trying to gather some of its warmth, while jack had simply sat down on the ground somewhat close to the fire. Gruda sat cross-legged facing the fire, and started meditating, while Ellis simply sat down next to the Elite and folded her arms around her legs.

For what felt like an hour, nothing had happened, they all simply sat there in silence, before Gruda broke the silence

"How are you doing, young one?" Gruda said, without opening his eyes.

"I'm okay thanks to you mister." Ellis replied, happily.

"That is good to hear child." Gruda said, before uncrossing his legs.

"I have neglected to let you all know that I do have food and drinks in case you all need any." Gruda said, pointing at the Large green tent he had set up.

"I'm good." Rayla said, not needing to eat food right now.

Jack simply shook his head; he definitely did not need food for the next month or so. While Ellis simply thanked Gruda for giving her some food before he left.

"While we are on the topic of politeness…" Rayla started. "I never did get any of your names."

"I am Gruda Shalthamee, of the Clan Shalthamee." Gruda said, without missing a beat.

"I'm Ellis!" Ellis said, with a little bit of enthusiasm in her voice.

"Spartan Bravo Delta Charlie 049". Jack replied, with the response he was told to give if he was ever interrogated.

"That's a long name tin man, surely you've got another name you go by that is… shorter?" Rayla asked.

"049" Jack replied simply.

"So, your name is a number?" Rayla asked.

"No," Jack said, in his incredibly monotone voice.

"So, what's your real name?" Rayla asked, this time getting frustrated.

"Classified." Jack said.

"Classified is a dumb name," Rayla said, getting upset.

There was silence before jack started audibly chuckling.

"What's so funny, tin man?" Rayla asked, looking very upset now.

"The look on your face gets me every time," Jack said, stifling a laugh. "My real name is Jack, but no one calls me that ever. Everyone just calls me by my spartan tag, makes life easier in the middle of a battlefield." Jack said.

"Jack?" Rayla said, rolling it over in her mind a few times. "Didn't expect someone as lethal as you to have such a normal name."

Jack simply chuckled. She wasn't the first person to say that, and he knew she wouldn't be the last. Gruda pulled out both of his main weapons, getting ready to put them on the Plasma generator before being stopped.

"Wait, what are those things you've got in your hands?" Rayla asked, confused.

He lifted up his plasma rifle, turning it on. It made a humming noise before hissing as steam vented out of the weapon. He pulled the trigger and nothing but steam vented out of the weapon, he already knew the weapon was out of power.

"This is my plasma rifle; I've had it for over one hundred engagements and even more skirmishes." Gruda said, before putting the hilt of his energy sword out for everyone to see.

He ignited the blade, it made a sharp hissing sound before taking up that all too familiar form of the Energy sword, he waved it around a little bit, before disabling it and putting it on the plasma generator.

"That was my energy sword, a trusted weapon of all Sangheili warriors," Gruda said, before sitting back down.

Ellis simply looked awed, she had seen the weapons before, but only at a distance.

"Do you perchance have a spare energy sword I could borrow?" Rayla asked.

"Would you consider yourself a master of the blade?" Gruda asked, squinting his eyes.

Rayla nodded her head furiously, pulling out her own daggers to prove it. Gruda looked at the blades with what looked to be contempt, before tossing her an energy hilt. "The button underneath the hilt will ignite the blade. That one should be fully charged, and you will not need to worry about recharging it for a while." Gruda explained.

Rayla ignited the blade, which at first shook her, it was longer than her whole arm! She gave it a few test swings and noticed that it was very light, and there was no weight in the blade itself, it was all in the hilt. Rayla had a very large smile on her face.

She hit the button and the hilt turned off, bringing the light around the campfire back to a simmer. Rayla quickly pocketed the energy sword, believing that it would come in handy later.

Ellis was looking tired, so Rayla took her hand and brought her into another of the open tents.

That left the Elite and the Spartan, who both sat across from each other, both looking into the fire. Jack was the first to speak up.

"Do you know what brought down the covenant?"

"All I know is that an alliance between the Elites and the Humans led to a breaking of the covenant. We were already falling apart before the war, and it was only a matter of time before the covenant fell regardless." Gruda explained.

"I just… find it hard to believe you all aren't brainless bloodthirsty monsters like the brutes." Jack said. "No offense."

"I take no offense to that statement, for you do have a point." Gruda responded. "I know of a lot of Sangheili that did not wish to fight this war, but did not speak out for fear of dishonoring their bloodline and getting themselves killed." Gruda chuckled.

"You don't speak out in the covenant, not if you wish to live." Gruda said.

"You Humans fight virulently, but we still have no idea where you Demons came from. I remember fighting on one of your worlds when we first encountered the demons. How did your kind come to be?" Gruda asked.

"That's… not for me to say, I wish I could tell you but for both your safety and mine I won't say." Jack responded.

"Since we're playing twenty questions, what rank are you in the covenant military? Your armor makes you look like an Elite Spec op, but I know better." Jack asked.

"The armor I wear is not paramount to any rank you would understand, just know that if I wanted to, I could be a shipmaster." Gruda said.

The Spartan and the Elite went back and forth into the night, asking questions both about their background and just what each other's life was like, eventually morning struck.

And their journey would begin again.

**AN: Holy Shit! 4.5K words! This would have gotten released sooner if my internet didn't cut out halfway through the day. This chapter should be waaaay more descriptive than normal and that's what I want, because I want to make this a decently sized story for me to work on when I have free time. Also sorry for putting Callum, Ezran and Rayla to background roles, I figured for this story they would have a main role, but right now I can't find a good place for them, but I do have a few ideas for the next chapter.**

**Next Time: Expect some large scale warfare against the Brutes from the eyes of our silent general, and our trip will take a turn for our heroes to the west**

**.**


	10. The Arrival and The Ride

**Terra IV**

**Date: December 12****th****, 2552.**

**UNSC Washington**

"You will be personally overseeing construction of Firebase Alpha, as well as any further ground deployments. You know these lands better than anyone else here General, and I am obliged to let you command my troops with your expertise and knowledge combined." Captain Andrew addressed, with Amaya simply keeping a neutral face.

Amaya then signed something and promptly saluted. Sheriff translated. "She says it is an honor, sir."

"I'll have you and a small contingent of Marines load up on a Pelican, the base should be close to finishing up its fabrications now." The Captain nodded at Amaya, who saluted again before marching off to the Hangar.

Her armor clicked against the floor with every footstep, it looked heavy to a normal person, but then again, Amaya was no normal person. But everyone already knew that, for she also had a gravity hammer strapped on her back as well.

A couple of Marines were marching in a tight column down the hallway in formation. They all stopped their march to salute Amaya, who returned a salute, before continuing down the hall.

She walked through the door to the hangar bay. She saw a Pelican warming up, with the pilot walking around it and doing final checks. Amaya walked up to the pilot.

"She's almost good to go, ma'am, just got to do one last shakedown before dust off." The pilot said while checking the landing gear with a scanner.

Amaya nodded, before walking into the bay of the Pelican, and putting her hammer and rifle on the railing before walking through the open door to the cockpit, she then sat down in the co-pilots seat.

The pilot walked in and nodded to Amaya, who nodded back, before sitting down in her chair. The Pelican activated its thrusters and was guided out of its dock before exiting the hangar and entering the void of space.

The Pelican took a right and soon enough they were heading back to Terra IV, Amaya's home. The planet looked so big from where she was sitting, and yet, it still looked so small compared to what she had seen in her brief refuge on board the Washington.

The Pelican entered the atmosphere and started shaking for a bit, before steadying out as atmospheric reentry was complete. The Pelican simply flew in a straight path towards what she assumed was the firebase.

Then the Pelican shook, heavily.

Amaya heard scraping noises on top of the Pelican and looked up, not seeing anything and getting very concerned. She started scanning the clouds, trying to find something. The pilot kept flying forwards, mumbling something about "turbulence".

Then the clouds parted, and Amaya quickly got startled. She knew exactly what she saw.

It was a Dragon!

And it was heading in a forward dive directly at the Pelican!

The Pilot looked up, and exclaimed, "What the hell is that!?"

The Pelican tried to pull away, but the Dragon still managed to scrape along the right-wing of the pelican, causing the Pelican to lurch right.

"Right engine is at 32 percent! Another hit like that and this Pelican is toast!" The Pilot shouted.

Amaya quickly ran to the back of the Pelican, and hit the ramp release button. The ramp slowly lowered down and she saw the dragon race up from the ground below, heading straight for the back of the Pelican.

She quickly ran to the item rail and retrieved her assault rifle, slamming a magazine into its place and opening fire on the dragon. Most of the bullets simply bounced off the dragon's scaly armor, and those that did find their mark were little more than bug bites to the dragon.

The beast was getting closer and closer to the back of the Pelican, and Amaya realized something.

There was a mounted turret to her right.

She quickly ran to the turret and pulled the trigger. A hail of bullets left the chain gun, and these bullets hit like a very large bee sting. The dragon began flying upwards, but before it could get out of the view of the Pelican, Amaya managed to get a lucky shot near the Dragons face, puncturing its eye and blinding it.

The Dragon screamed, before crashing to the ground. Amaya was proud, first, she had saved some of her men from a Brute Chieftain, now she has slain a dragon!

She walked back to the cockpit and took one glance at the pilot, who was sweating beads. She smiled at the pilot, before retaking her seat as the co-pilot.

The rest of the trip went on in silence, with the flight going as smooth as it can with only one fully functioning engine. The firebase came in view and Amaya was immediately awestruck.

It was huge, a walled-off compound with turrets monitoring the outside for any potential intruders, and there were vehicles milling about on the inside and what looked like an airstrip for other Pelicans and broadswords to take off and land on.

The Pelican landed on a VTOL pad, and Amaya disembarked quickly leaving her pilot to get repairs ready for the engineers. She walked about in the base, observing everything that was there.

Marines were running on the inside of the base's walls in a circular pattern, and some workers were busy moving boxes around and checking up on supply stocks. Amaya walked up to the largest building, which was easily two stories tall.

She guessed this was where her quarters would be, and when she entered the building, she was not disappointed. The room she was in was a decent size, and there were officers looking over what she could only assume was a battlefield analysis table.

"Are you General Amaya?" One of the officers asked.

She simply nodded, before signing something. One of the officers that had a translator spoke aloud to the room, "She says that would be me, who are you all?"

The officer to the right, who was dressed in a full combat outfit, saluted and addressed Amaya. "I am Master Gunnery Sergeant Damian Foxe, ma'am, but most just call me Sergeant Foxe. I officially have command over all the Marines stationed at this outpost, all orders I give re considered to be directly from you ma'am."

The officer in the middle, who was dressed in a white officer's attire saluted second and then addressed Amaya as well. "I am Lieutenant colonel Jackson Valdova, if you need an airstrike, I can make it happen." He said, with his hands held behind his back and his chin held high.

The last one, who looked way younger than the other two, was still saluting since Amaya had entered the room, and looked scared out of her mind. Amaya glared at her before she gasped. "Sorry ma'am, I've been recently promoted so I'm still new to this whole 'being an officer deal', I am Sergeant Major Jesse Macallen, I have full control over all armored divisions and Armored Infantry divisions."

Amaya nodded, this wasn't some ragtag group of commanders, this was the legitimate deal. She smiled; this was going to be a great time.

…

The morning had risen swiftly, and everyone who had fallen asleep was now slowly rising from their slumber, all except Jack and Gruda.

Callum was one of the first ones up, walking out of his tent to notice that both the Spartan and the Elite were talking to each other, which while that wasn't unusual, it just kind of weirded him out if his face was anything to go by.

The second ones up were Ezran and Ellis, who both walked out of their respective tents. Ezran was rubbing his eyes, while Ellis simply blocked out the sun with her hand. The only one they were waiting on was Rayla. Who, after a few minutes, walked out of the tent ready to go.

"Where are we off to next?" Ezran asked, still scratching his eyes.

"We still need to head east, but from here on out it should be a straight shot back home, shouldn't be any more human settlements or detours." Rayla responded.

"How long will this journey take?" Gruda asked. "I need to know how much supplies I should take with us."

"It'll take roughly another 6 days of travel, more if we're not traveling lightly," Rayla said.

Jack shook his head. "No, that's too much time, we need a faster route," Jack said.

"Well unless any of us here have some horses, I don't think we're gonna get there any sooner," Callum said, upset.

"Not horses, but maybe I could call in for some 'reinforcements' per se." Jack said, putting a finger up to his helmets right side.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Callum asked.

Jack simply held a finger up to silence Callum, and Callum simply stood there, trying to figure out what was happening, before Jack piped up. "Command can't spare the resources for something like a Pelican, but they have a lot of extra transport warthogs, so they're gonna drop one off for us."

"Wait, a warthog? You mean like the pig?" Ezran asked, obviously confused.

"Just wait a sec, you'll see." Jack said, while Ezran just got even more confused.

About 30 seconds passed before a Pelican showed up, putting almost everyone in the group except Gruda in utter awe, and it dropped off the warthog before quickly flying off. Callum excitedly looked over the car, while Ezran just stared wide-eyed at the vehicle. Rayla was more confused than anything.

"So, you just touch your helmet and they bring you stuff?" Rayla asked, confused out of her mind.

"I have a special device that lets me talk to people not right next to me, one of the many perks of being a spaceman." Jack said sarcastically.

Rayla then looked over to the car, or rather, 'Warthog' as the Spartan called it. It had four wheels underneath the vehicle and it had a large back with seats and a railing above the seats for what she guessed was for the passengers to hang on to. The only problem was she didn't see any way to make the 'Warthog' go forwards.

"You guys want to take a seat? I'll get this bad boy ready to go." Jack said, hopping in the driver seat, with Callum sitting in the passenger seat next to him.

Gruda helped Ezran and Ellis up to the seats in the back behind Jack, and Rayla sat on the seat closest to Callum in the back on Cullum's side.

"You all may or may not want to hold on tight." Jack said.

Gruda simply scoffed, before grabbing the handrail. The others grabbed on to the rail above their heads. Jack pressed down on the gas pedal and the Warthog lurched forward, going from zero to sixty in about 3 seconds.

Callum and Ezran laughed out loud, while Ellis looked at Ezran and giggled. Rayla simply held on to the Warthog like her life depended on it, with a very scared look on her face.

"Hey! elf girl! Is it possible for us to get to Xadia on land? cause last I checked there was a decently sized lake between us and Xadia." Jack exclaimed over the Warthog's very loud engine.

Rayla quickly got out of her trance, and exclaimed to Jack, "I think with this we'll be able to go around that lake, although I don't think we'll be able to do it quietly!"

"We don't need quiet! Not like anything will be able to stop us!" Jack yelled, more than confident in his driving abilities.

With the sand kicking up behind them they traveled off into the distance, each of them with a different form of life in their faces.

**AN: Phew, sorry I couldn't get this one out sooner, I was busy at a New years party and didn't get home until around 5 P.M. today, and again thanks to all of you who are viewing this story, it means so much for me to see all these people follow and favorite my story. Also, sorry cooldude, When it said a guest has reviewed my story I thought it meant a guest, I didn't know you had a name.**

**Next Time: Some heavy action from a near all-out war with Amaya in the middle of it, and the ride to Xadia gets very hectic very fast.**


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